[6] With generous candour, Mr. Loch, in his 'Narrative,' bears testimony to the correctness of this view.

[7] The British subjects thus restored were Mr. Parkes, Mr. Loch, and a trooper of Probyn's Horse; the French subjects were M. l'Escayrac de Lauture, who was at the head of a scientific mission, and four soldiers.

[8] In a subsequent letter, Lord Elgin paid to Mr. Parkes this well-merited tribute. 'Mr. Parkes' consistent refusal to purchase his own safety by making any pledges, or even by addressing to me any representations which might have embarrassed me in the discharge of my duty, is a rare example of courage and devotion to the public interest; and the course which he followed in this respect, by leaving my hands free, enabled me to work out the policy which was best calculated to secure his own release, as well as the attainment of the national objects entrusted to my care.'

[9] The language used by Mr. Bruce, in reporting to the Foreign Office Mr. De Norman's death, is still more striking; and it has an additional interest as being eminently characteristic of the writer: 'It has not been my fortune,' he says, 'to meet with a man whose life was so much in harmony with the Divine precept, "not slothful in business, serving the Lord." With a consistency unparalleled in my experience he brought to bear on the discharge of every duty, and to the investigation of every subject however minute, the complete and undivided attention of the sound abilities, the good sense, and the indefatigable industry with which God had endowed him. A character so morally and intellectually conscientious, striving to do everything in the most perfect manner, neglecting no opportunity of acquiring fresh and of consolidating previous knowledge, promised a career honourable to himself, and, what he valued far more, advantageous to the public, had it pleased God to spare him.

'Now there remains to those who knew him intimately only this consoling conviction, that death, however sudden, could not find him unprepared.'

[10] The only English prisoner ultimately unaccounted for was Captain Brabazon, Deputy-Assistant Quarter-Master-General of Artillery, an officer whose finished talent and skill in drawing had often been of the greatest service in taking sketches of the country for the military operations. His body was never found; but it was believed that he had been beheaded by order of a Chinese General in his exasperation at a wound received in the action of the 21st of October.

[11] A well-known Protestant M.P.

[12] Mr. Adkins.



CHAPTER XIV.

SECOND MISSION TO CHINA. HOMEWARD.

LEAVING THE GULF—DETENTION AT SHANGHAE—KOWLOON—ADIEU TO CHINA—ISLAND OF LUZON—CHURCHES—GOVERNMENT—MANUFACTURES—GENERAL CONDITION—ISLAND OF JAVA—BUITENZORG—BANTONG—VOLCANO—SOIREES—RETROSPECT—CEYLON—THE MEDITERRANEAN—ENGLAND—WARM RECEPTION—DUNFERMLINE—ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER— MANSION HOUSE DINNER.

The first part of the homeward voyage, along coasts already so well known, offered little to dwell upon except the thankful recollection of what had been accomplished, and the joyful anticipation of happy meetings to come. The journal contains the following entries:—

[Sidenote: Leaving the Gulf.]

'Ferooz,' Gulf of Pecheli.—November 27th.—So far on my way home. I left Tientsin on the 25th at about 7 A.M. We had to plough our way through ice until we reached the Taku Forts, at 8.30 P.M. We found the Admiral in the 'Coromandel.' He was very civil, and would have given me accommodation for the night; but I had so many people with me, that I thought it better to push on; so at about midnight we crossed the bar of the Peiho river. There was so much broken ice on the inner side of it, that it reminded one of some of the pictures of the arctic voyages. We forced our vessel through—a little Indian river-boat—and found on the outside enough sea to make us very glad when we reached the 'Ferooz' at 2.30 A.M. It was about 4 A.M. when I was able to lie down to rest. Since then we have been waiting for Parkes, who stayed at Tientsin for a letter from Pekin about the opening of the Yangtze river, which I am anxious to take with me to Shanghae. ... Yesterday was a lovely day; a bright sun, and the air frosty enough to stimulate one to walk briskly. This morning there was a strong gale from the north-west, but it subsided after midday. I had a very satisfactory time at Tientsin. We got through a good deal of business; and, what is most pleasant to me, Frederick seems perfectly satisfied with the whole affair, and the part I have taken in it. ... The Admiral, who is very strong in support of me, had given orders that the whole fleet should be illuminated with blue lights, if I reached the 'Ferooz' at night. This I did not know, or I should not have chosen so unseasonable an hour. The consequence was that the illumination was not complete, but it had a fine effect so far as it went. Scores of transports have taken their departure, which is a great blessing, for they have been costing fabulous sums. Too many troops are still left; but I hope soon to get them reduced.

November 28th.—Two P.M.—We are off. All the vessels in the English fleet here manned yards and saluted as we passed; and, when we reached the French fleet, all the yards were manned, and the Admiral saluted. I thought we could not do less than return the latter. It was all a very fine sight, the day being favourable. Parkes arrived last night while we were at dinner, but without the letter which he had waited for. The latter, however, reached me this morning, and is very satisfactory; so that I shall have accomplished the great object of opening the Yangtze to trade.

After a few days of 'lovely weather,' enjoyed to the full in the 'Ferooz'— 'certainly a most splendid yacht—such a fine deck, and quieter than a Royal Navy vessel'—he reached Shanghae on the 3rd of December.

[Sidenote: Shanghae.]

Shanghae.—December 4th.—We reached this place at 3 P.M. yesterday. I have received your letters to October 9th. How I grieve for your anxiety about Bruce's illness! How glad I am he is near the ——'s. He could not be watched over by kinder friends.

Eagerly as he desired to hurry homewards he found it necessary to stay at Shanghae for some weeks, in order to complete the detailed arrangements for opening the river Yangtze to British traders, and also to settle the awkward question of the relations which should subsist between the British residents, and the Chinese Rebels in their neighbourhood.

Shanghae.—December 14th.—I am a good deal puzzled about my departure. The opening of the Yangtze and the Rebel question are serious matters, and I do not like to leave them unsettled: on the other hand, I can hardly, even if I were so inclined, remain here till they are settled. I think it will end in my staying till the next mail comes in from the North.

Sunday, December 16th.—Eight A.M.—The mornings are lovely here now; a bright sun, rising about half-past six; and not exactly frost, but a mere hint of its presence in the air. I take walks, and have just returned from one; generally the tour of the race ground, which is the only walk here. While I humbly pace along, the clerks of the Hongs—such of them at least as are careful of their healths, and moderate in their supper arrangements—flaunt past me on their chargers. I march on, thinking whether it would not in a new existence be advisable to begin life as a tea-taster.

December 21st.—The wind has changed to the north, and my walk this morning was a colder one. Yesterday I made a tour of the town of Shanghae, and find that the French, by way of protecting it, burnt down about one-half of the suburbs during the summer. They have destroyed it to a greater extent than we destroyed Canton in 1857 by our bombardment. 'Save me from my friends,' the poor Chinaman may well say. The French have some method in their madness, for they want the ground of the burnt district, and they insist on having it now at the cost of the land, 'as there are no houses upon it.' At Canton, in the same way, they have seized land in the most unjustifiable way, to build churches on.

Shanghae.—December 31st.—Yesterday was a torrent of rain, and I never left the house. As I have a comfortable room, and no great interruptions, I get through a good deal of my reading. ... There was a fortnight of the 'Times' to begin with. The Reviews. ... Trollope's novel of 'Dr. Thorne;' 'Aurora Leigh' (which I admire greatly); then Sir Robert Wilson's 'Russian Campaign,' which contains some curious revelations; Darwin's 'Origin of Species,' which is audacious; &c. &c. In short, you will allow that I have not been quite idle during the fortnight.

January 1st, 1861.-This is the first time I sign the new year. May it bring much happiness to you!... It was introduced here by dancing. But I was not in a lively humour, and retired as soon as I could.... No mail yet, and I would start without it, were it not that I expect three mails by it.

[Sidenote: Hong-Kong.]

At length, on the 4th of January, he writes, 'Hurrah! I am off, with a fair wind.' On the 8th he reached Hong-Kong, where he found little to detain him; the most important matter being the formal taking possession, in the Queen's name, of the recently ceded peninsula of Kowloon.

Hong-Kong.—January 10th.—I presume, from the apologetic tone of a speech (very civil in itself) made by Lord J. Russell in the city, and quoted in the 'Home News,' that I was being well abused in England when the mail left. It is all miserable enough, but I had rather that it had blown over before I reach home, as I might seem to reflect on others if I defended myself, and you say truly that we have had enough of that kind of thing.

January 15th.—I find that the new Factory site [at Canton], about which I had such a fight with the merchants last time, is a great success.[1] Its merit is now acknowledged by the blindest.

In a subsequent letter, referring to the last days of his stay at Hong- Kong, he wrote:-

[Sidenote: Kowloon.]

We had a sort of ceremonial on Saturday the 19th. I went to Kowloon, and proclaimed formally the annexation of that territory to the dominions of the Queen. This acquisition, the good site at Canton, and the opening-up of the North of China and Japan, have added at least twenty per cent. to the value of European life in China.

[Sidenote: Adieu to China.]

On the 21st of January he bade a final adieu to the shores of China, and directed his course to Manila; desiring to avoid this time the dreary line to Singapore which he had traversed so often, and attracted also by the new fields which the Spanish and Dutch colonies offered for his observation.

[Sidenote: Manila.]

At Sea, near Manila.—January 24th.—I wrote a very shabby line to you as I was leaving Hong-Kong, but it may not perhaps be an unwelcome one, as it informed you I had started. We have had rough weather, and I take up my pen to-day for the first time. We are now under the lee of some of the Philippines, so we get less of the great swell which has been rolling down from the north-east, and of the gale which blows during this monsoon down the channel that separates the island of Formosa from the Philippines as through a funnel.

Manila.—January 26th, Eight A.M.—I sent off a few lines to you yesterday, to tell you of my very inopportune arrival off this town, at a moment when all the world, functionaries, &c., are on tiptoe expecting a new Captain-General to make his appearance at any hour. However, Castilian hospitality is not to be taken in default, and at 4 P.M. we landed with great ceremony, and after being conducted to the palace, and exchanging a few glances with the acting Governor, who cannot speak a word of any language known to me, I was shown a magnificent suite of apartments destined for me and my following, and then conveyed for a drive in one of the carriages-and-four (vide Sir J. Bowring's book), escorted by a guard of lancers. It is very curious to see a state of things so different from ours. Such a number of troops; gens-d'armes on horseback; not a person meeting us (the Governor-General was with me) who did not take off his hat. At dinner I sat next the Admiral, who also speaks nothing but Spanish; so we passed our time in looking at each other unutterable things.

[Sidenote: Churches.]

Ten A.M.—I have just got rid of my uniform, in which I thought it proper to attire myself in order to receive all the officers, naval and military, who came at nine o'clock to pay their respects. I had strolled out much earlier incognito, and wandered into several churches. They abound here, as do monks of all orders. The decorations seemed tinselly enough, but there was the Catholic ritual, with its sublime suggestions and trivial forms, repeating itself under the equator in the extreme East, as it repeats itself at Paris or Madrid, and under Arctic or Antarctic circles. And here, as there, at these early morning services, were a few solitary women assisting; some of them commonplace-looking enough, but others, no doubt, with a load of troubles to deposit at the altar, or in the ear of the monk in the box, heavy enough to furnish the burden of many such romances as those which thrill the public sensibilities in our days. After all, when the horrors which have brought about the result are past and forgotten, there is something gained by that truculent Spanish system which forces the faith upon all who come within its reach. Fais-toi chretienner, ou je t'arrache l'ame, as Charlemagne (not a Spaniard, by the way, so there my illustration halts) said to his heathen enemies. There is something, I say, gained by it when the origin is forgotten, because the bond of a common creed does do a little towards drawing these different races together. They are not separated from each other by that impassable barrier of mutual contempt, suspicion, and antipathy, which alienates us from the unhappy natives in those lands where we settle ourselves among inferior orders of men. An administrative net of a not very flexible nature encloses all, and keeps each member of the body politic pretty closely to the post allotted to him; but the belief in a common humanity, drawn perhaps rather from the traditions of the early, than from the practice of the modern church, runs like a silken thread through the iron tissue. One feels a little softened and sublimated when one passes from Hong-Kong, where the devil is worshipped in his naked deformity, to this place where he displays at least some of the feathers which he wore before he fell. So you must pardon me, if my letter reflects in some measure the phase through which my mind is passing.

[Sidenote: State of the Island.]

I found next me at breakfast the Chief of the Secretariat, an intelligent man, speaking French. He confirmed a good many of the impressions which my own observations had led me to form respecting the state of affairs here. The army is composed of natives; officers and non-commissioned officers, Spanish. The artillery, or a portion of it, also Spanish. The native Indians pay a capitation tax of $1 a head; half-castes double; Chinese $50, $30, or $12. As usual, my poor Chinamen are hated and squeezed. They are not obliged to become Catholics, but the native Indian women can/will not marry them unless they are, and they are not allowed to make public profession of any other religion.... After breakfast came in an English merchant, who made the passage from Suez to Singapore with me in 1857. He says foreigners are very well treated here, but they have some difficulties about customs duties, which I have asked him to state in writing to me, that I may say a word about them if occasion offers. The greater part of the trade here is in English hands.

[Sidenote: Indian women.]

To pass from the higher thoughts which suggested themselves when I visited the churches this morning, I may tell you that I saw some of the devout Indian women when they left the churches on their return. They were generally very plain, to say the least of it. Round their waists and over their under-dress they pass a piece of silk, which is wrapped tight round the person. The result is as nearly as possible the opposite to the effect produced by a crinoline.

[Sidenote: Cigar making.]

I have returned from a very hot drive to visit a sugar refinery and a cigar manufactory. I saw little to interest at the former, except the process of making chocolate by mixing cocoa, cinnamon, and sugar. At the latter, some 8,000 girls were employed, not very pretty, but cheerful-looking. A skilful worker can make 200 a day, so that these young ladies can poison mankind to the tune of 1,600,000 cigars a day.

[Sidenote: The cathedral.]

Sunday, January 27th.—Ten A.M.—In my early morning's walk I again visited the churches, which were in greater activity than yesterday. In the cathedral I came in for a sermon which began 'Illustrissimo Senor' so I suppose the Archbishop was present, and probably had me in his eye. I could understand very little, so I did not stay it out. It was delivered without notes (having evidently been learnt by heart), in rather a monotonous way; with a sort of little action, all confined to a slight movement of the hands and flipping of the fingers.... The Archbishop is, I am told, very bigoted. He did not come to dinner yesterday (a grand full-dress dinner given in my honour), and some say it was because of my being a heretic. I take it I was in error yesterday in speaking of the Spanish system of compelling conformity of belief as necessarily beginning in harshness. I fancy the monks have won over the simple Indians here to a great extent by gentle methods. They protect them, and manage their affairs, and know all their secrets through the confessional, and amuse them with no end of feast-days, and gewgaws, and puerile ceremonies. The natives seem to have a great deal of our dear old French Canadian habitans about them, only in a more sublime stage of infantine simplicity.

[Sidenote: A pueblo.]

January 28th.—I drove this morning to a village (pueblo) about seven miles off, starting at 5.30. The weather nice and cool. The country very rich. The cottages of bamboo and leaves, and all raised on bamboo posts of about ten feet in height, seemed very comfortable. I never saw a more cheerful-looking rural population. All nicely and modestly dressed. The women completely emancipated from all eastern seclusion. I visited in this pueblo another great cigar manufactory; 8,000 girls employed. I must say that this colony appears to be a great success, as far as the natives are concerned, and I almost regret that I am not going to see something more of the interior. Crealock has been through the barracks, which he says are in admirable condition. The native soldiers appear to be very well treated. We dined yesterday with the Admiral. Just before we set out for this dinner, a procession was announced, and I went to the balcony to see it. The students of a college, some 350 in number, were escorting about two spangled and sparkling images of the Virgin, and a variety of flags. Each carried a lighted torch, and they lined both sides of the road, the interval between their rows being occupied by the images, three or four bands of music, the flags, &c. As all the bands played at once, and as loud as they possibly could, the noise was tremendous, and the cathedral bell helped, by tolling its deepest tone as the procession passed. These processions are the great religious stimulant here, and they form another point of resemblance with the French part of Canada.

After little more than three days' stay among the Spaniards of Luzon, he embarked again on the 29th on board the 'Ferooz,' and passing by Sarawak and the north-west coast of Borneo, crossed the Line to visit the Dutch settlement of Java.

[Sidenote: Crossing the Line.]

February 6th.—A fine morning, and we are going through the Gaspar Strait in about 2 deg. 30' south, not very far from where Lord Amherst was wrecked in the 'Alceste.' We anchored again last night, but in a calm. Yesterday morning Neptune made his appearance, and those of us who had not passed the Line had to pay the penalty. I compounded for his claims on me, and the crew had a good lark in shaving with tar and ducking some other novices. We are now in mid-summer, having passed at a bound from mid-winter. There is little difference, however, in these latitudes, between one part of the year and another. The principal difference consists in the rainy and dry seasons, and as near the Line as this there is, I suppose, always more or less rain. Two P.M.—I went on deck this morning at eight, after writing, to discover why we were stopping, and I found that a squall had closed in all around us, and hid the land. It lasted only about an hour, when we set off again, passing through a great many little islets all covered with trees, so different from the barren Pulo Sapata and Pulo Condor, which we pass on the route between Singapore and Hong-Kong! The weather is delicious, and I am confirmed in my doctrine, that if you are compelled to be in or in the vicinity of the Tropics, the nearer the Line the better. You have not the interminably long summer days which you have at more remote points, and constant showers veil the sun and cool the air. This makes Singapore comparatively so bearable, and I suppose Sarawak has some of the same advantages.

[Sidenote: Java.] [Sidenote: Residence of the Governor-General.]

Java.—February 8th. Three P.M.—Here I am looking out from my window upon a piece of park-like scenery,—a sheet of water, drooping trees, and deer feeding among them. The only drawback is that it is raining, and this is not an unqualified evil, because the rain cools the air. The place I am at is the residence of the Governor-General of Java (or of the Indies, I believe his title is), about forty miles from Batavia, the chief town, at which I landed yesterday, at 5 P.M., with much honour in the way of salutes, &c. We were conveyed in carriages-and-six, with an escort, to the Governor's town palace, which I was told to consider placed at my disposal. It consists chiefly of a very spacious room on the ground-floor, paved in marble, and looking very brilliant, lit up with wax candles in chandeliers. Some of the high officials came to dinner, and we were waited on by black servants in state liveries and bare feet, who moved noiselessly over the marble floor. The original town of Batavia is unhealthy for Europeans, so they live in villas which extend from the town for some miles, on both sides of the main road into the interior. The villas looked very nice, and white women seemed to abound in them. It was hinted to me that the Governor-General would like to see me at his residence, so I set out for this place at about seven this morning, performing thirty-six miles in two hours and fifty minutes, in a comfortable carriage drawn by six ponies, changed every five miles. I need hardly say that we always went at full gallop. The country was not very interesting, being chiefly low and rice-bearing, nor did I see the cheerful firm-looking maidens who struck me so much at Manila. This island is exploite entirely for the Government and dominant race, and with no little success, for I am told that the surplus revenue last year was L6,000,000, L4,000,000 of which were remitted to Holland. I shall end by thinking that we are the worst colonisers in the Eastern world, as we neither make ourselves rich, nor the governed happy.

[Sidenote: Botanic Garden.] [Sidenote: Monument to Lady Raffles.]

February 9th.—I took a drive at six this morning, and then a walk through the botanic garden, which is attached to this house and has a great reputation. I am no judge, as you know, but everything seems in beautiful order, and it is of great extent. After a light repast I got a carriage to take me down to a spacious swimming-bath, paved with marble and shaded by magnificent trees, in which I felt rather tempted to spend the day. I should mention that, before dinner yesterday, when the rain slackened, I went into the garden, and was arrested as I wandered along the paths musingly, by a monument with an English inscription. It is to the wife of Sir Stamford Raffles, who died here in 1814, while the colony was in our hands; died here, that is, at Buitenzorg, for this inscription has taught me the name of the place, which I had not been able to catch before. I see little of my host. We dined at half-past six; nobody but his staff and daughter and my rather numerous following, who are not, I fear, all as well dressed as he approves of; a short seance after dinner, and then to our private apartments. Today we met in the same stiff way at twelve, for breakfast. I have not seen a book or a paper in the house, but that may be because I am not admitted to the parts of the mansion where they are to be found. An expedition has been organised for me, and I start tomorrow morning. It will occupy four days, but it would be absurd to come to such a place as this, and to leave it without seeing anything. The Governor-General has spent thirty-one years of his life here, but for a time (six years) he was colonial minister in Holland. His daughter's husband was killed by a native running a'muck (this is a Javanese expression) some years ago. She seems a gentle person, and has a daughter eight years old. We all speak French, which is an improvement on my Manila experiences.

They started at six on the morning of the 10th, in three carriages-and-six, and slept the first night at a place called Chipana, where they 'were to have ascended' a mountain 9,000 feet high, but were prevented by the 'rain.' The next day's journey brought them to the high table-land of Bantong.

[Sidenote: Bantong.] [Sidenote: Javanese soiree.]

February 11th.—Bantong.—About 120 miles from Batavia, on a plain about 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. The weather comparatively cool, though this is the hot season. I have just (10 P.M.) returned from a Javanese soiree. The Regent (a sort of native lord- lieutenant) invited me to his house to see some dancing. This Regent is very rich, about L12,000 a year, which he receives from a tithe paid to him by all producers in his regency. The dancing was performed by four girls wearing strange helmet-shaped head-dresses, and garments of a close-fitting stiff character reaching to the ground. They swayed their bodies to and fro in a melancholy way to a very monotonous plaintive sort of music, but their chief art consisted in the wonderful success with which they twisted their arms and fingers. In a second dance they carried bows and arrows, and went through a kind of pantomimic fight. After this was over, as I had expressed a wish to see more of his house, I was taken across a court to another ground- floor room, and was startled by finding myself suddenly introduced to Madame la Regente, an odd little woman, with a wizened face, and mouth and teeth blackened by betel nut. I was rather put into a difficulty in finding conversation for her, for I did not know whether she would like being complimented on the ballet we had just seen. I then went to look at the musicians and their instruments, the latter consisting chiefly of coffee canes struck by a sort of gong-sticks. The sound at a distance was bell-like and not unpleasing. I was informed that the Regent had paid L500 for his set of instruments. After this I returned to my inn in my carriage. How I got to this place I shall tell later. I must now go to bed, as we start at 5 A.M. on an expedition to see an active crater.

[Sidenote: A crater.]

February 12th.—Six P.M.—We started nearly as early as was proposed. Two hours of carriage work along a road made heavy by rain, and about two hours more of riding up a steep mountain side, covered with tall trees sinking under a load of creepers and orchideous plants, not so wild and bold as the mountain scenery of Jamaica, but with somewhat of the same character. We ascended about 4,300 feet from our starting-point, so that when we reached our goal we were 6,500 feet above the sea. Our goal was a covered shed overlooking a crater, not in a very active state, but puffing sulphurous smoke from numerous chinks and chasms. Beyond this first crater was a second very similar to it; and beyond both, far below, the plain of Bantong, where we now are, lay green and smiling. We could not see a great extent of it, for the heavy clouds were already mustering for the rain which at this season falls always in the afternoon. (It is now pouring, with thunder and lightning.) But the scene was very striking, and the clouds added to the mystery. We returned through a quinine plantation, which is an experiment, and promises to be a successful one, and then through a coffee plantation, different, and much prettier to look at than those of Ceylon and Jamaica, for here the bushes are allowed to grow to their full height (about twenty feet), and have a graceful pyramid- like shape; whereas there they are all pruned down to about five feet in height. There are also here some large trees left to give shade to the coffee bushes. I can conceive nothing more lovely than these plantations must be at the time of flowering. We got back to our hotel at 2 P.M., since when I have had breakfast, hath, and reading, and am now preparing for dinner.

[Sidenote: A second soiree.]

Ten P.M.—Another Javanese soiree. No ladies this time. To begin with: two kinds of marionettes; the first behind a kind of crape screen,—strange figures cut very beautifully out of buffalo hide, and jumping about to a very noisy vocal and instrumental accompaniment. The second, something like Italian marionettes, worked by a man's fingers, but without any attempt to conceal the operator. Both sets, I believe, represented historical subjects. When we had had enough of these, we went into another room, where were assembled a priest, and a whole lot of followers from a mosque. The amusement here consisted in seeing boys from the mosque stick into their cheeks, &c., daggers and pointed weapons, which the priest blessed, and which were therefore innocuous; a milder specimen of the supernatural I certainly never witnessed. All took place at the Regent's palace, from which I have just returned. His son, a boy of about fourteen, was present to-night and last night. A rather nice-looking boy. He never came near his father without crouching on his heels or knees, and putting his hands up to his face in an attitude of submission, if spoken to by him.

[Sidenote: Chipana.]

February 13th.—Ten P.M.—Chipana.—(The place we slept at on the night of the 10th.) On this, as on the former occasion, the population make a sort of festival of my visit, and turn out to perform dances, &c. The performances are not so refined as at the Regent's, but they are more picturesque and lively. The ladies move about in the same dreamy way about lamps, or rather torches, but here they have partners to dance with them. The noise is tremendous, and has not yet ceased, although I have retired, on the understanding that the entertainment is to come to an end, as we again start to-morrow at 6 A.M. To-night, all the dancing has been in the open air. It was a wild, barbarous- looking scene; but I do not know that I should much care to see it again. We started this morning at six, and travelled, as we have always done, at full gallop on the level or down hill, and with the aid of four buffalos in front of our six ponies when we came to mount steep hills, of which there are many. The roads are excellent. They are made by forced labour, and, what seems rather hard, the natives with their carts, &c., are not allowed to use them. I found here a bath formed by a hot iron or sulphur spring, into which I plunged before dinner. These Javanese seem the most timorous of mankind. A11, men and women, crouch on their heels and knees when our carriage approaches; and they do this, I believe, to all white people, as well as to their own chiefs. But it is not only this crouching; they have, moreover (especially the women), a way of turning their heads aside, as if they were afraid to look at one. The natives of the eastern part of the island are said not to be so timid.

Starting from Chipana early on the following morning, they continued their rapid descent by Buitenzorg to Batavia; and on the 16th embarked again on board the 'Ferooz,' for Ceylon, where he expected to find an accumulation of four mails. 'Two months of news!' (he wrote). 'I always feel nervous as to what so long an interval may bring forth.'

[Sidenote: Strait of Sunda.]

'Ferooz,' at Sea.—February 16th.—One P.M.—We are entering the Strait of Sunda, which separates Java and Sumatra. When through it we have a clear sea-way to Galle. Two P.M.—We have just passed the high land which forms the north-western point of Java, and is called Cape St. Nicholas. It is beautifully rich-looking; the bright green of its grass and crops embroidered over by the darker green of the clumps of trees which are scattered upon it. Farther down to the south, on the same side, is the flat promontory known as Angen Point. On the other side we have the coast of Sumatra, wooded and broken, with mountains in the background, and green islets tossed out from it upon the ocean, in the foreground; and a sailing ship moving along it in the same direction with ourselves, her sails flapping idly in the calm.

Sunday, February 24th.—We have just had service on deck, under a double awning. A little fanning breeze from the north-east seemed to say that we are at last getting back into the region of that monsoon which we left when we went to the south of the Line. I have been some days without writing, for there has been nothing to tell, and we have had a good deal of bad weather, rain, and rolling and pitching; but we must not complain, as it was more convenient to have it here in the open sea, than if we had encountered it in a narrow passage, such as we have passed through. We expect to reach Galle in three days, and I cannot but feel a little nervous as to the news I may find there. We are in God's hands, and this sort of doubt makes us feel the more that we are so.

[Sidenote: Retrospect of Java.]

Altogether, I was much interested by Java. As I have said, it is ruled entirely for the interest of the governing race. No attempt is made to raise the natives. I believe that the missionaries are not allowed to visit the interior. I asked about schools, and ascertained that in the province of which the regency of Bantong forms a part, and which contains some 600,000 inhabitants, there were five; not, I suspect, much attended. It was clear from the tone of the officials that there was no wish to educate the natives. There is a kind of forced labour. They pay a tithe of the produce of their rice-fields; are obliged (in certain districts) to plant coffee, and to sell the produce at a rate fixed by the Government; in others, to work on sugar estates, and, in all, to make roads. Nevertheless, I am not satisfied that they are unhappy, or that the system can be called a failure. In those districts which I visited there was no appearance of their being overworked; and I was assured that, on the sugar estates, the proprietors have no power of punishing those who do not work; that it rests with the officials exclusively to do so. The tone of the officials on the subject is, that no punishment is necessary, because, although they are so lazy that if they had the choice they would never do anything, they do not make any difficulty about working when they are told to do so. Economically it is a success. The fertility of the island is very great, so that the labour of the natives leaves a large surplus after their own subsistence is provided for. There are twenty provinces, in each of which the chief officer is the president—a Dutchman; but the native chief (Regent) has the more direct relations with the people, arranges about their labour, &c. The Dutch officials look after him, and see that he does not abuse his power.

[Sidenote: Ceylon.]

Pressing eagerly forward, he reached Ceylon, the scene of so many anxieties and disasters, on the last day of February.

Ceylon, March 2nd.—I found here your letters to January 10th, and am relieved... Where is our meeting to be?... If I can, I shall take the route through Trieste and Paris.

On the 20th he writes from the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai:—

[Sidenote: Sinai.]

March 20th.—Noon.—We are now in the Gulf of Suez. On the right side a row of arid mountains with serrated crests, and a margin of flat dry sand at the base, and behind them what is reputed to be Mount Sinai. Only a glimpse of the latter can, however, be caught at one point, where there is a depression in the nearer range. On the left there are mountains of a similar character, overtopped by one 10,000 feet high. The sea is deeply blue and the sun scorching, but the air cool—almost cold. We have had a good deal of wind and sea against us for the last three days; but we passed the Straits of Jubal early this morning, and hope to be at Suez during the night.

On the 24th he was once more enjoying the fresh and invigorating breezes of Europe:—

[Sidenote: The Mediterranean.]

Sunday, March 24th.—On board H.M.S. 'Terrible.'—Here is a change of scene! The last words of this journal were written in the Gulf of Suez, on board the 'Ferooz.' I now write from the Mediterranean, off the island of Candia, whose snow-capped mountains are looking down upon us; very different from the parched ranges of hills wrapped in perpetual heat haze, which I described to you four days ago.

[Sidenote: Greece.]

March 26th.—Seven A.M.—I have been about two hours on deck. A beautiful morning, and smooth sea. On our right the coast of Albania, hilly and wooded. On our left the land is low, and covered apparently with olive trees. Before us the southern end of Corfu, which we are approaching. Farther on, the channel along which we are gliding seems to be closed in as a lake, the Corfu mountains and those of Greece overlapping each other. The snow-covered crests of some of the latter gleam in the sunshine. It is a lovely scene. Yesterday we passed Cape Matapan, Zante, &c., all on our right; but there was a good deal of wind and sea, and an unusual amount of motion for the 'Terrible.' Navarino, too, we passed; but I did not know it at the time. We propose to call in at Corfu, take in coal, and see what can be seen during the day. But I hope to be off for Trieste to-morrow morning.

[Sidenote: Corfu.]

March 27th.—We found at Corfu three line-of-battle ships and Admiral Dacres, who came on board to see me. I landed at 11 A.M., and went to the Government House, where I found Sir H. Storks. He took me a drive of about thirteen miles, to the top of a pass in the mountains called Pantaleone, from which there is a very extensive view. It is a beautiful island. The day bright and sunny. Nothing can be more picturesque than the town. The people, too, seem to me very handsome. I saw this morning the captain of a sloop-of-war who has been visiting various ports in the Adriatic. He was received at Ancona with a furore of enthusiasm, and exceedingly well treated at Venice, Trieste, &c., by the Austrians, who are burning to revenge themselves on the French, and anxious to ally themselves with us for that purpose.... We have been steaming through a narrow channel, with the snow-covered mountains of Albania on our right; but we are now emerging into the open Adriatic.

[Sidenote: England.]

By Trieste and Vienna he travelled rapidly to Paris, where he was met by Lady Elgin; and on the 11th of April 1861, within a few days of the anniversary of his departure, he found himself once more on British soil.

[Sidenote: Warm reception.] [Sidenote: Dunfermline.]

The reception which awaited him at home was even warmer than that which he had met with two years before. What gratified him, perhaps, more than any of the many similar expressions of good-will was the cordial welcome with which he was greeted by his old friends and neighbours at Dunfermline: friends from whom he had been, as he told them, so long an unwilling absentee. His answer to their address was the simple and natural expression of this feeling.

It is pleasant (he said)—perhaps it is one of the sweetest flowers we cull on the path of this rugged life—to find ourselves among old friends after a long absence, and to find their hearts beat as true and warm as ever. I am deeply gratified by the flattering terms in which my public services have been referred to in this address, but I am still more gratified by the welcome which you have tendered to me to-day.... Gentlemen, I have been for many years very much, perhaps too much of a wanderer, and it has been my fortune to receive from our countrymen established in different parts of the world tokens of their regard and consideration. The very last address of felicitation I received before I landed at Dover the other day was from a body of my countrymen established in the Philippines—a group of Spanish islands in the far East, near the equator. But allow me to say that among all these tokens, those most grateful and agreeable to me are those which I receive from friends and neighbours at home. And, perhaps, I appreciate these tokens the more highly, because I am conscious that the very fact of my having been so much of a wanderer, has prevented me from acquiring some of those titles to their personal regard which I might have hoped to establish if I had been constantly resident among them.

[Sidenote: Royal Academy dinner.]

About the same time he was received with marked distinction at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy in London; and the words which he spoke on that occasion have more than a mere passing interest, as illustrating the speaker's frank and straightforward manner of dealing with a question of great delicacy, and also as containing some striking and suggestive remarks on certain mental and moral peculiarities of the Chinese people.

I am especially gratified (he said) by the great and very unexpected honour which you have done to me in drinking my health, because I trust that I may infer from it that in your judgment, Sir, and in that of this company, I am not so incorrigibly barbarous as to be incapable of feeling the humanising influences which fall upon us from the noble works of art by which we are surrounded. And, as I have ventured to approach so nearly to the margin of a burning question, I hope that I may be allowed to take one step more in the same direction, and to assure you that no one regretted more sincerely than I did the destruction of that collection of summer-houses and kiosks, already, and previously to any act of mine, rifled of their contents, which was dignified by the title of Summer Palace of the Chinese Emperor. But when I had satisfied myself that in no other way, except, indeed, by inflicting on this country and on China the calamity of another year of war, could I mark the sense which I entertained, which the British army entertained—and on this point I may appeal to my gallant friend who is present here this evening, and who conducted that army triumphantly to Pekin with so much honour to himself and to those under his command—and which, moreover, I make bold in the presence of this company to say, the people of this country entertained—of an atrocious crime, which, if it had passed unpunished, would have placed in jeopardy the life of every European in China, I felt that the time had come when I must choose between the indulgence of a not unnatural sensibility and the performance of a painful duty. The alternative is not a pleasant one; but I trust that there is no man serving the Crown in a responsible position who would hesitate when it is presented to him as to the decision at which he should arrive.[2] And now, Sir, to pass to another topic, I have been repeatedly asked whether, in my opinion, the interests of art in this country are likely to be in any degree promoted by the opening up of China. I must say, in reply, that I do not think that in matters of art we have much to learn from that country, but I am not quite prepared to admit that even in this department we can gain nothing from them. The distinguishing characteristic of the Chinese mind is this—that at all points of the circle described by man's intelligence, it seems occasionally to have caught glimpses of a heaven far beyond the range of its ordinary ken and vision. It caught a glimpse of the path which leads to military supremacy when it invented gunpowder, some centuries before the discovery was made by any other nation. It caught a glimpse of the path which leads to maritime supremacy when it made, at a period equally remote, the discovery of the mariner's compass. It caught a glimpse of the path which leads to literary supremacy when, in the tenth century, it invented the printing press; and, as my illustrious friend on my right (Sir E. Landseer) has reminded me, it has caught from time to time glimpses of the beautiful in colour and design. But in the hands of the Chinese themselves the invention of gunpowder has exploded in crackers and harmless fireworks. The mariner's compass has produced nothing better than the coasting junk. The art of printing has stagnated in stereotyped editions of Confucius, and the most cynical representations of the grotesque have been the principal products of Chinese conceptions of the sublime and beautiful. Nevertheless, I am disposed to believe that under this mass of abortions and rubbish there lie hidden some sparks of a diviner fire, which the genius of my countrymen may gather and nurse into a flame.

[Sidenote: Dinner at the Mansion House.]

A few days afterwards, at a dinner given at the Mansion House in his honour, he was again greeted with more than common enthusiasm. In responding, after giving an account of the objects that had been sought and the results that had been achieved in the East, he concluded his speech by impressing on the merchants of England, in words which may be regarded as his final and farewell utterance on the subject, that with them must now chiefly lie the responsibility of aiding or retarding the development of China, and thus of determining the place she shall hold in the commonwealth of nations.

My Lord Mayor (be said), I should be very much to blame if, having an opportunity of addressing an assembly in this place, I omitted to call attention to the fact that the occasional misconduct of our own countrymen and other foreigners in China is one of the greatest, perhaps the very greatest, difficulties with which the Queen's representatives there have to deal. We send out to that country honourable merchants and devout missionaries, who scatter benefits in every part of the land they visit, elevating and raising the standard of civilisation wherever they go. But sometimes, unfortunately, there slip out from among us dishonest traders and ruffians who disgrace our name and set the feelings of the people against us. The public opinion of England can do much to encourage the one class of persons and discourage the other. I trust that the moral influence of this great city will always be exerted in that direction. In addressing the merchants of Shanghai some three years ago, at the time when I announced to them that it was my intention to seek a treaty in Pekin itself if I could not get it before I arrived there, I made this observation—that when force and diplomacy should have effected in China all that they could legitimately accomplish, the work which we had to do in that empire would still be only in its commencement. I repeat that statement now. My gallant friend who spoke just now has returned his sword to the scabbard. The diplomatist, as far as treaty- making is concerned, has placed his pen on the shelf. But the great task of construction—the task of bringing China, with its extensive territory, its fertile soil, and its industrious population, as an active and useful member, into the community of nations, and making it a fellow-labourer with ourselves in diffusing over the world happiness and well-being—is one that yet remains to be accomplished. No persons are more entitled or more fitted to take a part in that work than the merchants of this great city. I implore them, then, to devote themselves earnestly to its fulfilment, and from the bottom of my heart I pray that their endeavours towards that end may be crowned with success.

[1] Vide supra, p. 310.

[2] It may not be out of place here to quote the words used later in the evening by Sir Hope Grant, in returning thanks for his own health: 'With regard (he said) to what Lord Elgin has said about the destruction of the Summer Palace of the Emperor of China, I must say that I do candidly think it was a necessary act of retribution for an abominable murder which had been committed, and the army, as Well as myself, entirely concurred with him in what he did.'



CHAPTER XV.

INDIA.

APPOINTED VICEROY OP INDIA—FOREBODINGS—VOYAGE TO INDIA—INSTALLATION— DEATHS OF MR. RITCHIE, LORD CANNING, GENERAL BRUCE—THE HOT SEASON— BUSINESS RESUMED—STATE OF THE EMPIRE—LETTERS: THE ARMY; CULTIVATION OP COTTON; ORIENTALS NOT ALL CHILDREN; MISSIONARIES; RUMOURS OF DISAFFECTION; ALARMS; MURDER OF A NATIVE; AFGHANISTAN; POLICY OF LORD CANNING; CONSIDERATION FOR NATIVES.

From this time forward the story of Lord Elgin's life is no longer a record of stirring incidents, of difficulties triumphantly overcome, or novel and entangled situations successfully mastered. The career indeed is still arduous, and the toil unremitting, but the course is well-defined. Compared with the varied conflicts and anxieties of the preceding period, there is something of the repose of declining day, after the heat and dust of a brilliant noon; something even, young as he was in years, of the gloom of approaching night. It seems almost as if a shadow, cast by the coming end, rested upon his path.

[Sidenote: Vice-royalty of India.]

He had not been more than a month at home when the Vice-royalty of India, about to be vacated by Lord Canning, was offered to him, in the Queen's name, by Lord Palmerston. The splendid offer of the most magnificent Governorship in the world was accepted, but not without something of a vague presentiment that he should never return from it. This feeling was expressed with his usual frankness and simplicity, when in the course of an address delivered at Dunfermline, some months before his departure, after referring to former partings, uniformly followed by happy meetings, he said:—

[Sidenote: Forebodings.]

But, Gentlemen, I cannot conceal from myself, nor from you, the fact that the parting which is now about to take place is a far more serious matter than any of those which have preceded it; and that the vast amount of labour devolving upon the Governor-General of India, the insalubrity of the climate, and the advance of years, all tend to render the prospect of our again meeting more remote and uncertain.

Independently of any such forebodings, there were sorrows on which it is hardly necessary to dwell, but which were felt keenly by one so devoted to 'that peaceful home-life towards which he was always aspiring;'[1] the pain of tearing himself again from the children now growing up to need in an especial manner a father's presence, and of leaving the mother of these children, for a time at least, to contend alone with cares and anxieties from which it would have been his greatest happiness to shield and protect her. Something, too, there may have been of the depression which breathes in the poet's complaint, 'the roll of mighty poets is made up'—a feeling that the work of pacifying and settling India had been so thoroughly accomplished by Lord Dalhousie and Lord Canning, that the field no longer contained any laurels to be reaped by their successor. 'I succeed,' he used to say, 'to a great man and a great war, with a humble task to be humbly discharged.'

[Sidenote: Visit to Osborne.] [Sidenote: Sails for India.]

But these thoughts and feelings, though they may have dimmed the brightness of his anticipations, could not for long overcloud that 'unfailing cheerfulness' which contributed much to make him throughout life so successful himself, and so helpful to others: still less could they for a moment check the alacrity with which he set himself to prepare for his new duties. For some time he remained in London; after which he spent several pleasant months in Scotland, laying up a store of happy recollections to which his thoughts in after days often turned. Early in January 1862, accompanied by Lady Elgin, he went to Osborne on a visit to the Queen; who even in those early days of widowhood, roused herself to receive the first Viceroy of India ever appointed by the sole act of the Crown. On the 28th of the same month he quitted the shores of England; and, after a rapid and uneventful journey, reached Calcutta on March 12. As Lady Elgin was unable to accompany him, he resumed the habit of conversing with her, so to speak, through the medium of a journal; from which some brief extracts are here given, less for the sake of the few incidents which they record, than for the glimpses which they give into the mind and heart of the writer:-

[Sidenote: Man overboard!]

H.M.S. 'Banshee.'—Marseilles.—January 31st.—Only think of my writing again from Marseilles! I was breakfasting yesterday, when there was a cry of 'A man overboard!' We went on deck. After a while, the man—who had enormous water-boots on, but who was fortunately a good swimmer—appeared on the surface, caught hold of a life-preserver which had been thrown out to him, was picked up by a boat, and hoisted on board. After a bumper of brandy, he seemed none the worse. But in the meantime we had sprung our rudder-head (the same sort of accident as befell the 'Great Eastern'). It must have been bad, or it could not have gone as it did. The captain said to me: 'We may go on for a few hours, and see what we can do, and then return if necessary.' I did not see the fun of this plan, and suggested that we had better at once find out what was the matter. We returned to port, and, after a long deliberation, a scheme of patching was resolved upon.... It is most vexatious to be doing nothing, when my moments have been of late so precious and so hurried.

* * * *

'Ferooz.'—Gulf of Suez.—February 9th.—When I got on board this morning my heart smote me a little for having discouraged your coming out with me, for nothing can be more comfortable than this ship has been made, with a view to the accommodation of poor Lady Canning and you. Eight P.M.—It is very lonely to be spending this Sunday evening by myself, after the many happy ones I have enjoyed with you and the children during the past three months; and yet I would not forego the recollection of those happy days though it deepens the gloom of the present. Surely, whatever may happen to us all, it is something gained to have this retrospect in store.

[Sidenote: Old MSS.]

February 12th.—Going on as smoothly as ever.... I have been reading over some old manuscript books, written from twenty to twenty-five years ago, and containing a record of my thoughts and doings at that remote time. It is very interesting and useful to look back. I was working very hard during those years, searching after truth and right, with no positive occupation but that of managing the Broomhall affairs, and riding at a sort of single anchor with politics. Would it have been better for me if I had had more engrossing positive work? There is something to be said on both sides in answering that question. However, these books will not be again read by me, for I shall consign them to the Red Sea.

February 13th.—The breeze is freshening and dead ahead.... I have been thinking of the past, and remembering that just twenty years ago, at this same season, I set out on my first visit to the Tropics. What a strange career it has been! How grateful I should be to Providence for the protection I have enjoyed! How wild it seems, to be about, at the close of twenty years, to begin again.

[Sidenote: A gale.]

Sunday, February 16th.—A bad time since I last wrote. We have had a very strong gale.... There is less motion to-day, probably because we are under the lee of the Arabian coast. I could not wish that you had been with me while we were undergoing this misery; and we have made slow progress, but may reach Aden to-morrow. It has been a sad time.... I could not read, and have been lying down, thinking over so many things!... But there may, please God, be a good time beyond. I have been thinking of the little party in your room on this day, and endeavouring to join with you all.

[Sidenote: A moonlight night.]

February 19th.—Gulf of Aden.—Seven A.M.—I have just had my first walk on deck for this day. It is fine, and the head wind keeps up a cool draught of air for us. The night was pleasant and cool, and I spent an hour before I went to bed, walking up and down the bridge, between the paddle-boxes, looking at a great moon, a little past the full, climbing up the heavens before us, and (as Coleridge says, I think in the notes to the Ancient Mariner, of the stars) entering unannounced among the groups of stars as a guest certainly expected —and yet there is a silent joy on her arrival.

February 27th.—Near Ceylon.—According to the account of our captain, who hails from Bombay, the Governor there must be very well off as regards climate. He has the sea air at Bombay itself; 2,000 feet of elevation at Poonah; and 5,000 on a mountain accessible in two days from Bombay. So that his family may always live in a cool climate, and he can join them when business permits. Perhaps at some future time the convenience of the situation of Bombay, its greater vicinity to England, &c., may place the Governor-General there; but this will not happen in our time.

[Sidenote: White ants.]

As I went into my cabin yesterday before dinner, I observed a swarm of white flies with long wings, by the side of one of my open ports. I found out that they were white ants which had burst through the wood- work, and which seem to be provided with wings under such circumstances, in order that they may migrate. The wood-work inside near the place from which they burst out, was completely destroyed by them, and reduced to a pulp. It appears that there are quantities of these creatures in this ship. It is believed that they are only in the scantling or upper wood-work. It is to be hoped that this may be so; for they devour timber with wonderful rapidity, and ships have been lost by their eating away portions under water.

[Sidenote: Madras.]

March 7th.—Madras.—Reached the anchorage at 4.30 P.M. We soon got into one of the country boats made for landing in the surf (without nails, and all the planks sewn together). We were hoisted by the waves upon the beach, and found there a considerable crowd, with the Governor, Sir W. Denison; Sir H. Grant, etc., and a guard of honour, to receive us; Sir W.D. drove me out to this place, Guindy, which is about eight miles from the town, and consists of a charming airy house, in a large park. There was a full-dress dinner party and reception last night.... I have decided to proceed to Calcutta to- morrow.

'Ferooz.'—March 9th.—Sunday.—It was very hot during the service under the awning. But you and the little ones were remembered on this sweltering Bengal sea.... My visit to Madras was pleasant, and an agreeable change.... And I collected there papers and official documents enough to keep me going till I reach Calcutta.

[Sidenote: Calcutta.] [Sidenote: Installation.]

It was on the evening of March 11th that the 'Ferooz' anchored in 'Diamond Harbour,' the same anchorage at which, in the 'Shannon,' he had spent the night of August 8, 1857. The following day he was formally installed as Viceroy and Governor-General; receiving every kindness from Lord Canning, whom he describes as not looking so ill as he expected to find him, 'but,' he adds, 'those about him say he is far from right in health.' Six days later Lord Canning took his departure, and Lord Elgin was left to enter upon his new duties.

[Sidenote: Death of Mr. Ritchie.]

He had not been a fortnight in office when the uncertainty of life in Calcutta was brought home to him in a striking and ominous manner by the sudden death of an esteemed member of his Legislative Council, Mr. Ritchie. Writing on March 23 to Sir Charles Wood, who was then Secretary of State for India, he said:—

We are truly here in the case of the women grinding at the mill. Who would have supposed a few days ago that poor Ritchie would have been the first summoned? About two days before Canning's departure, I asked him to come and see me; he talked with me for an hour. In the evening a note was received from his wife to say that they could not dine at Government House, as he was seriously indisposed. He appears to have felt the first symptom of his malady while he was sitting with me. This afternoon I attend his funeral. He is a great loss; he seems to have been very much liked and esteemed.

The death of Mr. Ritchie, followed by the appointment of Sir B. Frere to the Government of Bombay, the promotion of Mr. Beadon to the Lieutenant- Governorship of Bengal, and the retirement of Mr. Laing owing to ill health, left only Sir R. Napier remaining of the five members of Council whom Lord Elgin found in office; and, though the vacant places were soon afterwards most ably filled, the change of councillors necessarily added to the labours of a new Governor-General. He did not, however, during the first comparatively cool months, find the work too much for him. 'On the contrary,' he wrote, 'time would be heavy on hand if I had not enough to fill it.'

[Sidenote: Mode of Life.]

The days (he wrote to Lady Elgin) are very uniform in their round of occupations, so I have little to record that is interesting. As long as one has health, it is easy to do a good deal of work here, because for twelve hours in the day (from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.) there is no inducement to leave the house. I have hitherto had a little exercise before and after those hours. I rush into the garden when I awake, and return when the sun appears, glowing and angry, above the horizon.

In another letter he describes the plan, characteristic of his sociable and genial temperament, which he adopted in order at once to get through his work, and to obtain a competent knowledge of persons whose opinions were worth having.

I have two or three people to dine with me on every day on which I have not a great dinner. By this means I get acquainted with individuals, and if my bees have any honey in them I extract it at the moment of the day when it is most gushing.[2] It is very convenient, besides, because it enables me to converse by candlelight with persons who want to talk to me about their private affairs, instead of wasting daylight upon them. Unless I get out of sorts, I hope to become personally acquainted in this way with everyone, whose views may be useful to me, before I leave Calcutta, even to go to Barrackpore.

As the season went on, the heat became greater. 'For the last few days,' he wrote on June 1, 'it has been very hot; quite as hot, they say, as it ever is. I am longing for the rains, which are to cool us, I am told.' The rains came, and, so long as they continued to fall, the temperature was lower: but 'the heavy, dull, damp, calm heat between the falls,' he found most trying.

[Sidenote: Death of Lord Canning.]

On July 6 came a fresh shock to his feelings—a fresh omen of evil to himself—in a telegraphic report of the death of the friend whose place he had so recently taken. At first he could hardly bring himself to credit the news.

Is it indeed true (he wrote to Lady Elgin)? The last rumour of the kind was the report of my death, when I was mistaken for Eglinton; but this time I fear it is only too true! It will add to the alarm which India inspires. But poor Canning certainly never gave himself a good chance; at least not during the last year or two of his reign here. He took no exercise, and not even such relaxation of the mind as was procurable, though that is not much in the situation of Governor- General. When I told him that I should ask two or three people to dine with me daily, in order to get acquainted with all the persons I ought to know, and to talk matters over with them by candlelight, so as to save daylight for other work, he said: 'I was always so tired by dinner-time that I could not speak.' Perhaps he was only referring to his later experience; but still it was enough to break down any constitution, to wear oneself out for ever by the same train of thought, and the same routine of business. I think there was more in all this than met the eye, for work alone could not have done it. We shall have no confirmation of this rumour in letters for a fortnight or more.... Poor Canning! He leaves behind him sincere friends, but no one who was much dependent on him.

In another letter he wrote:—

So Canning and his wife, as Dalhousie and his, have fallen victims to India! Both however ruled here in stirring times, and accomplished great things, playing their lives against a not unworthy stake. I do not think that their fate is to be deplored.

A few days later he wrote from Barrackpore, where he had gone to seek the change of air which his health now began imperatively to require:—

This place looks wonderfully green. At the end of the broad walk on which I am gazing from my window, is Lady Canning's grave; it is not yet properly finished. Who will attend to it now? Meanwhile, it gives a melancholy character to the place, for the walk which it closes is literally the only private walk in the grounds. The flower garden, park, &c., are all open to the public.... Although Canning did not die at his post, I thought it right, as his death took place so soon after his departure from India, to recognise it officially, which I did by a public notification, and by directing a salute of minute guns to be fired.

While still oppressed with these sad thoughts, he received a blow which went even deeper home, in the intelligence of the death of his brother Robert, so well-known and so highly valued as Governor of the Prince of Wales.

[Sidenote: Death of General Bruce.]

Barrackpore.—July 26th.—I went into Calcutta on the morning of the 23rd, in time to write by the afternoon packet; but I did not write, for I was met on my arrival by a telegraphic rumour, which quite overwhelmed me.... I should hardly have allowed myself to believe that the sad report could be true, had it not been for the account of Robert's illness, which your last letters had conveyed to me.... Next day another telegram by the Bombay mail of the July 3rd left no doubt as to the name.... A week, however, must elapse before letters arrive with, the intelligence.... I hurried over my business, and came back here yesterday evening. It is more quiet than Calcutta; and sad, with its one walk terminating (as I have told you) at Lady Canning's grave. Poor Robert, how little did I think when we parted that I was never to see him again! How little at least, that he would be the defaulter! He has left few equals behind him: so true, so upright, so steady in his principles, and so winning in his manners. Of late years we have been much apart, but for very many we were closely together, and perhaps no two brothers were ever more mutually helpful. Strange, that with Frederick and me in these regions, he should have been carried off first, by a malady which belongs to them.[3]... I write at random and confusedly, for I have nothing to guide me but that one word. And yet how much in that one word! It tells me that I have lost a wise counsellor in difficulties; a stanch friend in prosperity and adversity; one on whom, if anything had befallen myself, I could always have relied to care for those left behind me. It tells, too, of the dropping of a link of that family chain which has always been so strong and unbroken.

In writing to his second boy he touched the same chords in a different tone.

You have lost (he said) a kind and good uncle, and a kind and good godfather, and you are now the only Robert Bruce in the family. It is a good name, and you must try and bear it nobly and bravely, as those who have borne it before you have done. If you look at their lives you will see that they always considered in the first place what they ought to do, and only in the second what it might be most pleasant and agreeable to do. This is the way to steer a straight course through life, and to meet the close of it, as your dear Uncle did, with a smile on his lips.

[Sidenote: The hot season.]

From this time his journal contains more and more frequent notices of the oppressive heat of the weather, and its effects upon his own health and comfort. He remained, however, at his post at Calcutta, with the exception of a brief stay at a bungalow lent to him by Mr. Beadon at Bhagulpore; his pleasantest occupation being the arrangement of plans for smoothing the path of Lady Elgin, who had settled to join him in India.

August 2nd.—Yesterday, I received your letter, with all the sad details.... It was truly a lovely death, in harmony with the life that preceded it.... It is indeed a heavy blow to all.... This is a sad letter, but my heart is heavy. It is difficult to make plans, with such a break-down of human hopes in possession of all my thoughts.

Calcutta.—August 8th.—It is now dreadfully hot.... In search of something to stay my gasping, I mounted on to the roof of the house this morning, to take my walk there, instead of in my close garden, where there are low shrubs which give no shade, but exclude the breeze. I made nothing, however, by my motion, for no air was stirring even there. I had a solitary and ghastly stroll on the leads, surrounded by the adjutants,—a sort of hideous and filthy vulture. They do the work of scavengers in Calcutta, and are ready to treat one as a nuisance, if they had a chance.... There is much sickness here now.

August 9th.—... The 'Ferooz' will not reach Suez till about the middle of November, so you had better not arrive there till after that time. You will have the best season for the voyage, and time to rest here before we go up the country.

Calcutta.—August 17th.—... I told you that I was feeling the weather.... I am going to-morrow for change of air, to a place about 300 miles from Calcutta, on the railway. It is not cooler, but drier, and the doctor strongly recommends the change. This is our worst season, and I suppose we may expect six weeks more of it. If this change is not enough, I may perhaps try and get a steamer, and go over to Burmah. But there is some difficulty in this at present.

[Sidenote: Bhagulpore.]

Bhagulpore.—August 19th.—We made out our journey to this place very well yesterday. The morning was cloudy, with drizzling rain, and much cooler than usual, and we had the great advantage of little sun and no dust all day. At the station of Burdwan, the inhabitants of the station, some of them ladies, met us, and in a very polite manner presented flowers. We kept our time pretty well in our special train, and reached our abode at about 7 P.M. The air here is sensibly fresher than at Calcutta.... The house is a regular bungalow,—a cottage, all on the ground-floor. It is situated on a mound overlooking the Ganges. There is no garden about it, but a grass field, with a few trees here and there. Between the window at which I am writing and the river is an open shed, in which two elephants are switching their tails, and knocking about the hay which has been given them for their breakfast. This is a much more quiet and rural place than any which I have visited since I have been in India; for Barrackpore is a great military station, and the park, &c., there are quite public. Here there are not altogether above five or six European families.... We have a train twice a day from Calcutta, so I can get my boxes as regularly as I do there.

[Sidenote: Monghyr.]

Bhagulpore.—August 25th.—On Saturday, we made an expedition to a place called Monghyr, about forty-five miles from here, where there is a hot spring, and something like hills. (I am told also, that on a particularly clear day I can see from here the highest mountain in the world.) We did not leave this till 3 P.M., and were back again by 8 P.M., having travelled some ninety miles by rail, and driven in carriages about ten or twelve more,—the fastest thing, I should think, ever done in India. There has been a good deal of rain, and I still feel well here, but I suppose on the 29th I must return to the Calcutta steam-bath. This forenoon I paid a visit to a school, one of the Government schools. The boys (upwards of 200) are not of the lowest class. They all read English very well and when asked the meaning of words, gave synonymes or explanatory phrases with remarkable readiness. During their early years, I should certainly say that they are quicker than English children. They fall off when they get older.

August 31st.—Calcutta.—We returned to this place on Thursday. It is cooler than when I left, but I fear we have not done with the heat yet. All agree that September is about the worst month in the year here.

Calcutta.—September 8th.—I do not think that Dr. M. is particularly proud of the way in which I am bearing up against this oppressive and depressing season.... I wish that we were going to the Neilgherries instead of to Simla. The climate is, I believe, better, and the place more agreeable, but it is entirely out of the way of business for me now, whereas Simla is a natural stage to the most important part of my government.

September 17th.—... I have given up my morning walks. It is now always sultry before sunrise, and the dullness of pacing up and down my garden at that hour is intolerable. So I walk till daylight in my verandah....

September 23rd.—... It seems strange to think that this is one of the last letters which you will receive from me in England, but yet it is still a long time before I can hope to see you here. The poor boys! You will be preparing to part from them, and all will be sad. Give them my love and blessing.

[Sidenote: Business revived.]

In the month of November the sittings of the Legislative Council, which had been suspended during the hot weather, were resumed, and the monotonous routine of the autumn was exchanged for more active, though hardly more laborious, work in maturing legislative measures. As President of this Council Lord Elgin threw himself with his usual zeal and assiduity into the discussion of the various administrative questions which demanded solution.

As the cold weather came on, he suffered much from the transition. Writing on the 4th of November to Sir C. Wood, he says: 'At the commencement of the cool season, on which we are now entering, we suffer from all manner of minor ailments; so I hope you will excuse a short letter.' And again on the 9th: 'I am half blind and rather shaky from fever still, so that again I shall be brief in my epistle to you.' Soon, however, these ailments disappeared, and in the cooler temperature he regained to a great extent his usual health.

[Sidenote: Arrival of Lady Elgin.]

A few weeks later the long dreary months of separation from all that he most loved were happily ended by the arrival of Lady Elgin, who with his youngest daughter, Lady Louisa Bruce, reached Calcutta on the 8th of January 1863.

[Sidenote: State of India.]

In passing from the personal narrative of these months, to their public history, it is necessary to bear in mind what was the state of the Indian Empire at the moment when Lord Elgin undertook its government.

[Sidenote: Peace.]

'India,' to use his own words, 'was at peace; at peace in a sense of the term more emphatic and comprehensive than it had ever before borne in India. The occurrences which had taken place during the period of Lord Dalhousie's government had established the prestige of the British arms as against external foes. Lord Canning's Vice-royalty had taught the same lesson to domestic enemies. No military operations of magnitude were in progress, to call for prompt and vigorous action on the part of the ruling authority, or to furnish matter for narrations of thrilling interest. On the contrary, a hearty acquiescence in the belief that no such opportunities existed, and that it was incumbent upon him, by all practicable means, to prevent their recurrence, was the first duty which the situation of affairs prescribed to a new Governor-General.'

[Sidenote: Questions to be solved.]

There were indeed grave questions awaiting solution; questions of great perplexity and embarrassment, though of a domestic and peaceful character; some of them the more perplexing because they bore upon 'those jealousies of race which are the sources of almost all our difficulties in India.' But as regards such questions his habitual caution, as well as the philosophic turn of his mind, led him to study very carefully all the conditions of each problem before attempting to propound any solution of his own; and in the meantime he felt that his duty was to employ any personal influence which he could acquire in smoothing the course of such measures as had been set in operation by the authority of others. 'The first virtue,' he said to one of his colleagues, 'which you and I have to practise here at present is Self-denial. We must, for a time at least, walk in paths traced out by others.'

But though, for the reasons above stated, it would be a mistake to look in the records of the time for any great measures, executive or administrative, on which he had set his mark, his various speeches and letters, more especially the full and frank communications which he addressed from time to time to the Secretary of State for India, Sir Charles Wood, show with what keenness of interest, as well as with what sagacity, he approached the study of Indian questions. A few extracts from his correspondence are here given to illustrate this; and as affording some indication of the unremitting industry with which he laboured at this period, searching into and maturing his views upon one difficult subject after another, as well as the whole plan of Indian government.

To Sir Charles Wood.

Calcutta, April 9th, 1862.

[Sidenote: The Army.]

Now for the Army. I must observe, in the first place, that in the reasoning employed here in favour of the maintenance of a large army, native and European, there is a good deal that is circular, and puzzling to a beginner.

When I ask why so considerable a native army is required, I am told that the native must bear a certain proportion to the European force; that Europeans cannot undertake cantonment duties, or, speaking generally, any of the duties which the military may from time to time be called to render in support of the civil power, during peace; that in war, again, they are admirable on the battle-field, but that they cannot turn their victories to account by following up a discomfited foe, unless they have the aid of native troops, nor perform many other services which are not less indispensable than great battles to success against an enemy who knows the ground and is inured to the climate.

This line of argument very naturally raises the question, wherefore then is the maintenance of so large a European army necessary? Rebellion has been crushed, and European troops are not suited for the repression of such local disturbances as occasionally occur. There is little present prospect of war from without, though Persia is moving towards Herat, and apparently preparing for Dost Mohammed's death. The answer which I invariably receive is this—'You cannot tell what will happen in India. Heretofore you have held the Sikhs in subjection by the aid of the Sepoys, and the Sepoys by means of the Sikhs. But see what is happening now. The Sikh soldiers are quartered all over India. They are fraternising with the natives of the South—adopting their customs and even their faith. Half the soldiers in a regiment lately stationed at Benares were converted to Hindooism before they left that holy place. Beware, or you will shortly have to cope in India with a hostile combination more formidable than any of those which you have encountered before.' If you draw from all this the inference that what you really dread is your native army, you get into the vicious circle again.

Do not suppose that I am tempted by these logical paradoxes to run to hasty conclusions. I am aware that for many reasons we must now entertain, and probably shall long find it necessary to entertain, a large army, native and European, in India. Practically, what we have to do is to endeavour, by a judicious system of recruiting, organisation, and distribution, to render our army as serviceable and as little a source of peril as may be. But I do think that they go far to prove that, notwithstanding our vast physical superiority to anything which can be brought against us, we should find it a difficult task to maintain our authority in India by the sword alone; and that they justify a very jealous scrutiny of all schemes of expenditure for military objects which render necessary the imposition or maintenance of taxes which occasion general discontent, or deprive the Government of the funds requisite for carrying on works of improvement that have the double advantage of stimulating the growth of wealth in the country, and increasing the efficiency of the means of self-defence which we possess.

* * * * *

To a Friend in Scotland, interested in the Cultivation of Cotton.

Calcutta, May 21st, 1862.

[Sidenote: Cultivation of cotton.]

I beg to assure you that I do not yield to yourself in my desire to promote the extension of cotton cultivation in India, and, above all, improvement in the quality of the staple. I consider that the interests of India are involved in this improvement to a greater degree even than those of Great Britain; for, no doubt, if the quality of the Indian product were so far raised as to admit of its competing on terms approaching to equality with that of America, it would obtain a permanent footing in the great market to which it has access now only at moments of extraordinary dearth.

Moreover, I do not scruple to confess to you that I am not so bigoted in my adhesion to the dogmas of political economy, as to be unwilling, at a season of crisis like the present, to entertain proposals for accelerating this result, merely because they contravene the principles of that science. On the contrary, I receive thankfully suggestions for accomplishing an object which I have so much at heart, more especially when they emanate from persons deeply interested and thoroughly conversant with the subject, like yourself—even when they fall within the category of what you style 'extraordinary measures.'

But you will surely allow that the onus probandi lies very heavily on a Government which adopts measures of this class; and that if, by abnormal interference, it checks the natural and healthy operation of the laws of demand on capitalists and cultivators, it incurs a weighty responsibility.

Even as regards the specific recommendation which you have made, and which has much to justify it in my eyes—because I would go great lengths in the direction of aiding the Ryots to improve their staple, if I could see my way to effect this object without doing more harm than good—I must observe that there are questions which have to be very gravely and carefully examined before it can be acted upon.

In the first place, it is right that I should tell you that the opinion which obtains here respecting the result of recent operations in Dharwar, in so far as the case furnishes a precedent for the interference of Government officers in such matters, differs widely from that entertained by you.

But, setting this point aside, and assuming for the sake of argument that the interposition at Dharwar was attended by unmixed benefit to all concerned, does it follow that corresponding success would accompany the mission of fifty military officers to the cotton districts of India for the purpose of inducing the Ryots to substitute exotic for native cotton in their cultivation?

In order to do this exotic cotton justice, it must be treated with some care, especially at the time of its introduction into districts where it has been previously unknown. Conditions of climate as well as of soil must be taken into consideration in determining the time and method of cultivation. The climate of Dharwar, where the monsoons meet, differs widely from that of many parts of India, where the seasons are divided between a deluge of rain and a period of baking heat. Am I likely to find fifty young military officers who would be competent to advise the Ryots on points of so much delicacy? And if the Ryots, following their counsels, were disappointed in the expectations which they had been led to form, what would be the effect on the prospects of cotton cultivation in India?

I do not say all this in condemnation of your scheme, but in order to point out to you how much has to be thought of before it can be acted upon.

Meanwhile there are measures for promoting the interests of cotton cultivation in India, which the Government can adopt without abandoning its proper sphere of action; not only without danger, but with a high probability, perhaps I might say a certainty, of benefit to the great cause which we have in hand.

We can facilitate the establishment in India of European cultivators and landholders, who are the natural and legitimate advisers of the native peasantry on such questions as those to which I have been referring.

We can improve communication so as to render the transport of the raw material to the ports of shipment more cheap and rapid.

To these and similar measures the attention of the Government of India is earnestly directed; with every disposition to take such further means of stimulating production as prudence may justify.

I have written at some length, but the importance of the subject and my respect for your opinion are my excuse.

* * * * *

To Sir Charles Wood.

Calcutta, May 9th, 1862.

[Sidenote: Orientals not satisfied with show of power.]

I know that it is customary with certain people whose opinions are entitled to respect, to act on the assumption that all Orientals are children, amused and gratified by external trappings and ceremonies and titles, and ready to put up with the loss of real dignity and power if they are only permitted to enjoy the semblance of it. I am disposed to question the correctness of this assumption. I believe, on the contrary, that the Eastern imagination is singularly prone to invest outward things with a symbolic character; and that relaxations on points of form are valued by them, chiefly because they are held necessarily to imply concessions on substantial matters.

* * * * *

To Sir Charles Wood.

Calcutta, June 21st, 1862.

[Sidenote: Imprudence of a missionary.]

You may be interested by reading a letter (of which I enclose a copy) written by the officer commanding the cavalry at Delhi on the subject of an alleged assault by a native trooper on a missionary. I should think that the cause of Christian truth and charity would be as well served by preaching in a church or a building of some sort, as by holding forth in the streets in a city full of fanatical unbelievers. If I am told that the Apostles pursued the latter course, I would observe that they had the authorities as well as the mob against them, and took not only the thrashings of the latter, but also the judicial penalties inflicted by the former, like men. It is a very different matter when you have a powerful Government to fall back upon, and to quell any riots which you may raise. However, these are burning questions, and one must handle them cautiously.

* * * * *

To Mr. Edmonstone, Lieut.-Governor of the N.W. Provinces.

Calcutta, May 27th, 1862.

[Sidenote: Rumours of disaffection.]

I am much obliged to you for your letter of the 19th inst., and I beg that you will make a habit of writing to me whenever anything occurs respecting which you may desire to communicate with me confidentially.

I do not, I confess, attach any great importance to such incidents as the circulation of the prophecy which you have enclosed to me. It is quite as probable that it may be the act of some mischievous person who desires to keep alive excitement in the popular mind, as the indication of an excitement already existing.

It must, moreover, be observed that the English press throughout India has taken advantage of the advance of Sooltan Jan on Furrah to descant, at great length and with much fervour, on all perils, present and prospective, to which British rule in India is, or may be, exposed. That the Mahommedan mind, thus stimulated and encouraged, should altogether eschew such speculations, could hardly be expected.

It is impossible, however, to be too vigilant in watching these manifestations of opinion; and I trust that you will not fail to put me in possession of all the symptoms of disquietude which may reach you, however trivial they may seem to be.

I need hardly point out to you how important it is that your inquiries should be so conducted as to give no countenance to the impression that they are prompted by any nervous anxiety, or that we should be much discomposed even if the 12th Imaum himself were to make his appearance.