Chapter XVI: India (2)

I confess I think it very important that the heads of the local
Governments should have had some training at headquarters. It is much
easier for an intelligent officer who has been so trained, to supply a
lack of local knowledge, than for one who has been constantly employed
in a particular province to grasp in a sufficiently comprehensive
spirit the general interests of the Empire, and duly to appreciate the
relative claims of its component parts. Already, among the high
officers in the Provinces, there is a considerable disinclination to
face the climate and labour of Calcutta. Situations in the Provinces,
where the work is lighter, where the summers can be spent on the
Hills, and where the holders are in a much greater degree monarchs of
all they survey, are naturally preferred to the sweltering metropolis.
This preference would be strengthened if it were supposed that this
provincial career was the road to the Lieutenant-Governorship.
Moreover, it is to be remembered that the patronage exercised by these
Lieutenant-Governors is very great indeed. It is important that it
should not fall too absolutely into the hands of the same local
cliques. So much on the abstract question of general _versus_ local
experience.

* * * * *

_To Sir Charles Wood._

Simla: May 6, 1863.

In a general way, I must say that I am inclined to give a preference,
in disposing of these high offices, to persons who have served in the
offices of the Supreme Government or in the Governor-General's
Legislative Council. I would not, of course, exclude men of proved and
eminent qualities because they had been employed only in the Provinces
or minor Presidencies; but my impression is that the work is lighter,
and that reputations are more easily won, in the service of the minor
than in that of the Supreme Government. Moreover, I think it desirable
that the best men should be attracted to the latter service; and I
observe a growing disinclination to abandon good opportunities under
local governments for those which the Supreme Government has to offer.
A local Government, with plenty of hill stations, &c., has many
attractions for persons who can contrive to be on good terms with the
Lieutenant-Governor. I think that something is due to those who face
the climate and the competition of Calcutta; not to mention the fact,
that they have opportunities of becoming conversant with the general
business of the country, beyond those which are enjoyed by persons
whose service has been confined to any one locality.

I think that the Legislative branch of the Governor-General's Council
should be a channel through which officers of the other Presidencies
may be introduced into the Secretariat and Council at Calcutta.

* * * * *

_To Sir Charles Wood._

Simla: May 21, 1863.

[Sidenote: Aristocracies.]

I have no objection _primâ facie_ to an aristocracy, and I am quite
ready to admit that conflicting claims of proprietorship in the same
lands are an evil; but I also know that, even in our old Christian
Europe, there are not many aristocracies that have had salt enough in
them to prevent them from rotting. And when I consider what Oriental
society is; when I reflect on the frightful corruption, both of mind
and body, to which the inheritors of wealth and station are
exposed--the general absence of motives to call forth good instincts,
or of restraints to keep bad in check--I own that I do not feel quite
sure that, even if we could sweep away all rights of sub-proprietors
or tenants, and substitute for the complications incident to the
present system an uniform land-tenure of great proprietors and tenants
at will, we should be much nearer the millennium than we are now....

[Sidenote: Against intermeddling in foreign politics.]

I am wholly opposed to that prurient intermeddling policy which finds
so much favour with certain classes of Indian officials. It is
constantly thrusting us into equivocal situations, in which our acts
and our professions of respect for the independence of other nations
are in contradiction, and in which our proceedings become tainted with
the double reproach of inconsistency and selfishness. Nothing, in my
opinion, can be more fatal to our prestige and legitimate influence.
My modest ambition for England is, that she should in this Eastern
world establish the reputation of being all-just and all-powerful;
but, to achieve this object, we must cease to attempt to play a great
part in small intrigues, or to dictate in cases where we have not
positive interests which we can avow, or convictions sufficiently
distinct to enable us to speak plainly. We must interfere only where
we can put forward an unimpeachable plea of right or duty; and when we
announce a resolution, our neighbours must understand that it is the
decree of fate.

* * * * *

_To Sir Charles Trevelyan._

Simla: June 17, 1863.

[Sidenote: Council to meet at Lahore.]

On the first occasion of transferring the Council from Calcutta to
another place, we ought to select some considerable town--the capital
of a Province or local Government, if possible. What we wish to do is
to give effect to the scheme embodied in the ninth clause of the
Councils Act, and we should do so in such a manner as to carry public
opinion with us. If the plan answers, we may exercise a greater
liberty of choice on future occasions.

I adhere to the opinion which I first expressed, that, on the whole,
Lahore is the place which unites the greatest number of advantages. It
is the capital of a province which is loyal, which is under the
Government of India, and which, moreover, has a good many special
characteristics of its own, with which it may be well that the Supreme
Legislature should acquaint themselves on the spot. Against these
recommendations is to be set the greater distance from Calcutta, which
does not affect communication by telegraph, and, for more bulky
communications, as compared with Delhi, is only a question of a few
hours.

I have no wish to legislate at a purely military station; my object is
to select a place of meeting where we may obtain some knowledge of
local and native feeling, which does not reach Calcutta.

* * * * *

_To Sir Charles Wood._

Simla: August 30, 1863.

After reaching this place, I soon came to the conclusion that the
reasons for meeting at Lahore were much more forcible than those which
could be advanced in favour of any other place; and circumstances
which have occurred since then have tended strongly to confirm me in
this opinion. Independently of the prestige which attaches to the
province of which it is the capital, and to the Sikh population which
inhabit it, the state of affairs in Afghanistan, and on our frontier,
would render a demonstration which would at once afford evidence of
our military strength and gratify the pride and self-importance of the
Sikh chiefs, at this moment especially opportune.

I have arranged with the Commander-in-chief to hold his camp of
exercise there; the Lieutenant-Governor is to have a great
Agricultural Exhibition, which I am to open; and if we mean to
establish ourselves for a couple of months there in our legislative
capacity while all this is going on, I think that it will have an
excellent effect both on our own people and on our neighbours.

[Sidenote: Sitana fanatics.]

Late in the month of September, during the last days of Lord Elgin's stay at Simla, occurred the only break in the otherwise peaceful tenor of his government, in the shape of an outburst of certain Wahabee fanatics inhabiting a frontier district in the Upper Valley of the Indus. The outburst is not without historical interest, as connected with similar disturbances which have assumed more serious proportions; but it is noticed here chiefly as illustrating the view which Lord Elgin took of the policy and duty of the British Government in such cases.

It was not without the greatest reluctance that he was induced to take up the quarrel at all: for he had the strongest aversion for warlike operations in the existing state of India, and particularly on the frontiers of Afghanistan; and he had no small distrust of those military tendencies and that thirst for opportunities of distinction which are apt to characterise the ablest Governors of frontier provinces. But he had prevented a Sitana expedition in the previous year; he was assured that the recent inroads of the fanatics were the direct consequence of his last year's supineness; and he was told that if he again held back, the disturbances would be renewed another year with usury. Moreover, he was assured that the projected expedition would secure the peace of the frontier for a long period; and that the operation would be little more than a military promenade, and would be over before his camp reached Peshawur.

It was scarcely possible for a civil Governor to resist such a pressure of professional opinion; and he consented to take measures of repression.

Writing to Sir Charles Wood on the subject, he said:--

The overt acts charged consist in the return of the fanatics to
Sitana, whence they were driven out by us some years ago; and the
frontier tribes in question are held to be guilty because they have
allowed them to return to this place, although bound by treaty with us
to refuse to admit them.... On a review of all the circumstances, and
looking to the well-known character and designs of the Sitana
fanatics, I came to the conclusion that the interests both of prudence
and humanity would be best consulted by levelling a speedy and
decisive blow at this embryo conspiracy.

Accordingly it was arranged that the Punjâb Government should at once take the necessary measures for expelling the fanatics from Judoon, where they had congregated, and then, if circumstances permitted, proceed to destroy their place of refuge at Mulka.

But it is well known that in India, to use Lord Elgin's own expression, 'rising officials are instinctively in favour of a good row.' Some of those around him were urgent that the expedition should be deferred until the spring, and should then be organised on a larger scale, and with more comprehensive objects. Lord Elgin set his face decidedly against this.

I wish (he wrote) by a sudden and vigorous blow to check this trouble
on our frontier while it is in a nascent condition. The other plan
would give it several months to fester and to extend itself; and, if
there be among the Mohammedan populations in these regions the
disposition to combine against us which is alleged, and which is
indeed the justification of the measure proposed, how far might not
the roots of the conspiracy stretch themselves in that time? The
Afghans in their distracted state might furnish sympathisers; we
should be invited to interfere in their internal affairs, in order to
oppose those among them who were abetting our Mohammedan adversaries;
in short, there is no end to the complications in which this
postponement of active operations might involve us. Everything is more
or less uncertain in such affairs; but in the absence of any very
palpable blunder, what we actually propose to do would appear to be a
pretty safe proceeding. The main purpose is to expel the fanatics from
Judoon; and it is hardly possible that we should fail in this, as they
are within easy reach of us there. The further objects--of punishing
other tribes, and destroying the refuge of the fanatics at Mulka--may
be abandoned if it be deemed advisable, without any loss of prestige,
though of course with some abatement of the completeness of the
movement. I therefore thought it necessary to adhere to my original
resolution.

[Sidenote: The Himalayas.]

On the 26th of September Lord Elgin left Simla _en route_ for Sealkote, where he was to rejoin his camp and proceed with it to Peshawur, the most distant station on the North-West frontier, before making his way to the great _rendezvous_ at Lahore. On the way to Sealkote he was to traverse the upper valleys of the Beas, the Ravee, and the Chenab, and the mountains that divide them; his main object being to inspect the great tea plantations, public and private, recently set on foot in those parts, and to ascertain for himself what facilities or possibilities the country afforded for commercial intercourse with Ladâk and China.

For the first week his route lay nearly northwards, through scenes very similar to those which he had left at Simla. 'We are going through a beautiful country,' he wrote on the 4th of October, 'and the people seem cheerful and well-to-do.' Shortly afterwards, having passed over the Sutlej at Komharsen, he crossed a considerable range of mountains by the Jalouri Pass, and found himself in the fertile basin of the Beas. Directing his course still northwards, he followed this river up to its source among the hills; and thence crossed by the steep and high Rotung Pass from the valley of the Beas into that of the Chenab--from the rich and smiling country of Kuloo into a rugged and inhospitable tract called Lahoul. He did not, however, remain long in these desolate regions; but, after crossing the Twig Bridge across the Chandra, an affluent of the Chenab, and inspecting a wooden bridge which had just been constructed to take its place, he retraced his steps southwards to Sultanpore, on the Beas river. From thence, on the 18th of October, he wrote as follows to Sir Charles Wood:--

[Sidenote: Kuloo.] [Sidenote: Rotung Pass.] [Sidenote: Twig Bridge.]

Thus far our expedition through the mountains has been very pleasant
and interesting. The scenery has been magnificent and the climate
enjoyable, though the changes of temperature have been considerable.
We are now at Sultanpore, in Kuloo, at an elevation of about 4,000
feet above the sea. But a few days ago we (the men of the party)
scaled the Rotung Pass, which divides Kuloo from Lahoul, and attained
in so doing a height of 13,000 feet, with a temperature low in
proportion. This pass is on the road from these provinces to Ladâk and
China, and I visited, on the other side of it, a new bridge over the
Chandra, which will be a great convenience to traders. Hitherto, if
the traders used mules or other animals of this magnitude, they could
cross the river with them only by making them swim; or, if sheep were
their beasts of burden, by driving them over a twig bridge, through
the meshes of which many fell into the river. I crossed the twig
bridge myself; and I found it about the most difficult job I ever
attempted. The new bridge will be completed in a few weeks. This road,
however, useful though it will doubtless be when improved, leads
through Ladâk, and the merchandise transported along it becomes
subject to the exactions of the ruler of Cashmere. The desideratum
would be a road which would be clear of his territory altogether.

The people in these regions seem good-humoured and merry-hearted,
producing for themselves all that they want; growing their own food,
making their own clothes; not much given to exchanges, and extremely
averse to labour. I asked a manager of a tea plantation the other day
how he was off for labour. He said that he contrived to induce
labourers to come to his plantation for a few days at a time, chiefly
for the purpose of earning money enough to pay the Government
assessment of their land; but his opinion was that, if there were no
assessment, no labour would be procurable. We have not yet come across
much tea. The plantations we have seen are on a very small scale, and
in a nascent condition; but they are promising. There seems no reason
to doubt that the climate and a certain portion at least of the soil
in this district are suited to the growth of tea. The climate, too,
does very well for the European constitution, though it is hardly as
healthy as I expected to find it. Both natives and Europeans are
subject to fever at certain seasons, especially in the valleys; but I
have no doubt that the latter may do well as employers of labour. This
place (Sultanpore) is only about 4,000 feet above the level of the
sea, and I have little doubt that, were the state of cultivation and
trade to justify the outlay, a cart road might be made to it without
great difficulty from the plain. This would greatly develop both its
natural resources and its capabilities as a commercial route.

The state of the forests which we have encountered during our route
has also engaged my attention. It is sad to see how they have been
neglected, and how much waste of valuable timber has ensued. The
natives have a practice of girdling fine trees, at a few feet from the
root, in order to strip off as much of the bark as they can
conveniently reach. It is rather a difficult practice to check; but,
if we can manage to draw a line between the woods in which the
villagers have rights and the public forests, we may impose heavy
penalties on the perpetrators of such offences.... The deodar forests
cease at the Rotung Pass. There are no forests of any value in Lahoul
and Spitti--scarcely indeed any wood at all.

We are now proceeding towards the Kangra Valley, where we expect to
find tea plantations in a more advanced condition.

[Sidenote: Illness.]

In this letter, and others of the same date, there is no hint of suffering or of ill-health; but when they were written he had already received the stroke which was to lay him in the grave. Before the departure of the next mail symptoms had appeared of serious disease of the heart, probably long lurking in his constitution, and now brought out into fatal activity by fatigue and the keen mountain air; and on the 4th of November, having with difficulty reached Dhurmsala, a station in the Kangra Valley,[3] he wrote to Sir Charles Wood in an altered tone, yet still hopeful and cheerful; and intent to the last in India, as at the first in Jamaica, and afterwards in Canada and China, on mitigating so far as lay in his power the evils which man brings on man.

[Sidenote: Last letter.]

You will not expect (he wrote, in this his last letter) to hear much
from me by this mail when you hear how I am situated. The Hill
expedition, of which I gave you some of the details in my last, had an
unexpected effect upon me; knocking me down prostrate to begin with,
with some symptoms of an anxious character behind, which require
looking into. The nature and extent of the mischief are not
sufficiently ascertained yet to enable me to say positively whether my
power of doing my duty is likely to be in any degree impaired by what
has happened. But Lady Elgin has brought up from Calcutta the medical
man who attended me there, and he arrived this morning; so that a
consultation will take place without delay. Meanwhile I have got over
the immediate effects sufficiently to enable me to do such business as
comes before me now. No change has taken place in our plans. We move
rather more slowly, and I have given up the idea of going to Peshawur;
but this is rather occasioned by the desire to confer with the Punjâb
Government, while these affairs on the frontier are in progress, than
by my mishap.

I think that the expedition (against the Sitana fanatics) will be a
success; and I labour incessantly to urge the necessity of confining
its objects to the first intentions. Plausible reasons for enlarging
the scope of such adventures are never wanting; but I shall endeavour
to keep this within its limits.

Lady Elgin is bearing up courageously, under a great pressure of
labour and anxiety.

The sad story of what follows cannot be told in other words than those in which it has already been given to the world, with all the skill of an artist combined with the tenderness of a brother, and with that fulness of authentic detail which only one source could supply.[4]

'Although he had suffered often from the unhealthy and depressing climate of Calcutta during the summer and autumn of 1862, and thus, to the eyes that saw him again in 1863, he looked many years older than when he left England, yet it was not till he entered the Hills that any symptom manifested itself of the fatal malady that was lurking under his apparently stout frame and strong constitution. The splendid scenery of those vast forests and snow-clad mountains inspired him with the liveliest pleasure; but the highly rarefied atmosphere, which to most residents in India is as life from the dead, seemed in him to have the exactly reverse effect.

'It was on the 12th of October that he ascended the Rotung Pass, and on the 13th he crossed the famous Twig Bridge over the river Chandra. It is remarkable for the rude texture of birch branches of which it is composed, and which, at this late season, was so rent and shattered by the wear and tear of the past year as to render the passage of it a matter of great exertion. Lord Elgin was completely prostrated by the effort, and it may be said that from the exhaustion consequent on this adventure he never rallied. But he returned to his camp, and continued his march on horseback, until, on the 22nd, an alarming attack obliged him to be carried, by slow stages, to Dhurmsala. There he was joined, on the 4th of November, by his friend and medical adviser, Dr. Macrae, who had been summoned from Calcutta, on the first alarming indications of his illness. By this time the disorder had declared itself in such a form as to cause the most serious apprehensions to others, as well as to himself the most distressing sufferings. There had been a momentary rally, during which the fact of his illness had been communicated to England. But this passed away; and on the 6th of November Dr. Macrae came to the conclusion that the illness was mortal. This intelligence, which he communicated at once to Lord Elgin, was received with a calmness and fortitude which never deserted him through all the scenes which followed. It was impossible not to be struck by the courage and presence of mind with which, in the presence of a death unusually terrible, and accompanied by circumstances unusually trying, he showed, in equal degrees and with the most unvarying constancy, two of the grandest elements of human character--unselfish resignation of himself to the will of God, and thoughtful consideration, down to the smallest particulars, for the interests and feelings of others, both public and private.

'When once he had satisfied himself, by minute inquiries from Dr. Macrae, of the true state of the case, after one deep, earnest, heartfelt regret that he should thus suddenly be parted from those nearest and dearest, to whom his life was of such inestimable importance, and that he should be removed just as he had prepared himself to benefit the people committed to his charge, he steadily set his face heavenward. He was startled, he was awed; he felt it "hard, hard, to believe that his life was condemned;" but there was no looking backward. Of the officers of his staff he took an affectionate leave on that day. "It is well," he said to one of them, "that I should die in harness." And thenceforth he saw no one habitually, except Dr. Macrae, who combined with his medical skill the tenderness and devotion at once of a friend and of a pastor; his attached secretary, Mr. Thurlow, who had rendered him the most faithful services, not only through the period of his Indian Vice-royalty, but during his last mission to China; and Her who had shared his every thought, and whose courageous spirit now rose above the weakness of the fragile frame, equal to the greatness of the calamity, and worthy of him to whom, by night and day, she constantly ministered.

'On the following day, the clergyman whom he had ordered to be summoned, and for whose arrival he waited with much anxiety, reached Dhurmsala, and administered the Holy Communion to himself and those with him. "We are now entering on a New Communion," he had said that morning, "the Living and the Dead," and his spirit then appeared to master pain and weakness, and to sustain him in a holy calm during the ceremony, and for a few hours afterwards. "It is a comfort," he whispered, "to have laid aside all the cares of this world, and put myself in the hands of God;" and he was able to listen at intervals to favourite passages from the New Testament. That evening closed in with an aggravation of suffering. It was the evening of the seventeenth anniversary of his wedding-day.

'On the following morning, Lady Elgin, with his approval, rode up to the cemetery at Dhurmsala to select a spot for his grave; and he gently expressed pleasure when told of the quiet and beautiful aspect of the spot chosen, with the glorious view of the snowy range towering above, and the wide prospect of hill and plain below.

'The days and nights of the fortnight which followed were a painful alternation of severe suffering and rare intervals of comparative tranquillity. They were soothed by the never-failing devotion of those that were always at hand to read to him or to receive his remarks. He often asked to hear chosen chapters from the Book of Isaiah (as the 40th and 55th), sometimes murmuring over to himself any striking verses that they contained, and at other times repeating by heart favourite Psalms. At times he delighted to hear his little girl, who had been the constant companion of his travels, repeat some of Keble's hymns, especially those on the festivals of St. John the Evangelist and of the Holy Innocents.

'Until his strength failed him, he was carried at times into the verandah, and showed by words and looks his constant admiration at the grand evidences of God's power and goodness in the magnificence of the scenery before him; and on one such occasion was delighted with the sublime description of the wonders of nature in the 38th and 39th chapters of the Book of Job.

'At times he was able to enter into conversation and argument on serious subjects. When, under the pressure of his sufferings, he was one night entreating to be released--"O that God would in mercy come and take me"-- Dr. Macrae reminded him of the dread of pain and death which seems to be expressed in the account of the Agony of Gethsemane, and he appeared to find much comfort in the thought, repeating once or twice that he had not seen it in this light before, and several times saying with fervour, "Not my will, but Thine be done." At other times, he could even be led, by way of steadying his wandering thoughts amidst the distraction of restlessness, to fix them on his school and college days, to tell anecdotes of his hard reading, or to describe the visit to Oxford of his venerable friend Dr. Chalmers. He dwelt in this way on a sermon of Dr. Chalmers at Glasgow, which he remembered even in detail, and from which he quoted some eloquent passages, bringing out the general scope of the sermon, to the effect that, rather than teach people to hate this bad world, we should teach them to love and look up to a better one.[5]

'It will naturally be understood that long converse was nearly impossible. As occasions rose, a few words were breathed, an appropriate verse quoted, and a few minutes were all that could be given at any one time to discourse upon it. It is characteristic of his strong, cheerful faith, even during those last trying moments, that he on one occasion asked to have the more supplicatory, penitential Psalms exchanged for those of praise and thanksgiving, in which he joined, knowing them already by heart; and in the same strain of calm yet triumphant hope, he whispered to himself on the night when his alarming state was first made known to him, "Hallelujah; the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. We shall all meet again."

'That thought was raised to its highest pitch by the sight of a portrait of a beloved son, who had died in England during his absence. It arrived in the close of those sad days. He recognised it with a burst of tenderness and delight which at once lifted his mind above the suffering of his mortal illness. Again and again he desired to see it, and to speak of it, with the fixed conviction that he and his "angel boy," as he called him, would soon meet in a better world. "Oh, when shall I be with you?" "You know where he is; we shall all go to him; he is happy."

'Every care had been taken for the public interests, and for the interests of those still nearer and dearer to him. He had laid the most solemn charge on his faithful secretary to conduct Lady Elgin home on her mournful and solitary voyage. He had given to Dr. Macrae, with the tenderest marks of affection, a turquoise ring: "We have had a long struggle together; keep this in memory of it." He had dictated a telegram to the Queen resigning his office, with a request that his successor might be immediately appointed.

'With this exception, public affairs seem to have faded from his mind. "I must resign myself to doing no work. I have not sufficient control over my thoughts. I have washed my hands of it all." But it was remarkable that, as the end drew nearer, the keen sense of public duty once more flashed up within him. It was on the 19th that he could not help expressing his wonder what was meant by his long lingering; and once, half wandering, he whispered, "If I did not die, I might get to Lahore, and carry out the original programme." Later on in the day he sent for Mr. Thurlow, and desired that a message should be sent, through Sir Charles Wood, expressive of his love and devotion to the Queen, and of his determination to do his work to the last possible moment. His voice, faint and inaudible at first, gained strength with the earnestness of the words which came forth as if direct from his heart, and which, as soon as pronounced, left him prostrate with the exertion. He begged, at the same time, that his "best blessing" might be sent to the Secretaries of the Indian Government, and also a private message to Sir Charles Wood in England.

'These were his last public acts. A few words and looks of intense affection for his wife and child were all that escaped him afterwards. One more night of agonized restlessness, followed by an almost sudden close of the long struggle, and a few moments of perfect calm, and his spirit was released.

'His death was on the 20th of November, and on the 21st he was privately buried, at his own request, on the spot selected beforehand.'

* * * * *

He was cut off, as those felt most keenly who were most capable of judging, 'just at the moment when his best qualities were about to show themselves;' just when the information and experience which he had accumulated were beginning to ripen into confidence in his knowledge of the country; and to the historian his figure must remain as an unfinished _torso_ in the gallery of our Indian rulers. But those who have read the foregoing pages, more especially the fragments which they contain of his own words and writings, will have derived from them some impression of the varied ability, the steady conscientious industry, the genial temper, the 'combination of fertility of resource with simplicity of aim,' of firmness with tact, of cautious sagacity with prompt resolution, which might have found even larger scope in the government of India than in the active and eventful life which has been described.

These attributes, however, do not make up the man, such as he lives in the memory of those who saw him most nearly. Beneath the manifold outward workings of his strong and capable nature there flowed a 'buried life' of depth more than proportionate.

After his death, one who had known him long and intimately, on being asked what he considered to be the most distinguishing characteristic of his deceased friend, answered at once, 'Disinterestedness: he seemed utterly incapable of regarding any subject except with a view to the interests of his country. And next to that,' he added, 'affectionateness; I never can forget the grief he showed at the death of his first wife; I thought he never would have held up his head again.' How this tenderness deepened and mellowed in the husband and father of later years, some slight indications may be found in the letters that precede.

Disinterested devotion to public duty; tender and affectionate sympathies; a passionate love of justice, showing itself especially in a religious regard for the rights of the weak; all resting on the foundation of a firm and loving trust in God; these, far more than his ability or his eloquence, are the qualities that made him what he was: the qualities, by the exercise and imitation of which, those who seek to do him honour may best perpetuate his memory.

There is one spot from which that memory is not likely soon to pass away: the spot towards which, in his most distant wanderings, his thoughts turned with even more than the ordinary longing of a Scotsman for the place of his birth, and always with the fond hope that he might be permitted--

life's long vexation past,
There to return, and die at home at last.

'Wherever else he was honoured' (to borrow again from the author already quoted), 'and however few were his visits to his native land, yet Scotland at least always delighted to claim him as her own. Always his countrymen were proud to feel that he worthily bore the name most dear to Scottish hearts. Always his unvarying integrity shone to them with the steady light of an unchanging beacon above the stormy discords of the Scottish church and nation. Whenever he returned to his home in Fifeshire, he was welcomed by all, high and low, as their friend and chief. Here at any rate were fully known the industry with which he devoted himself to the small details of local, often trying and troublesome business; the affectionate confidence with which he took counsel of the fidelity and experience of the aged friends and servants of his house; the cheerful contentment with which he was willing to work for their interests and for those of his family, with the same fairness and patience as he would have given to the most exciting events or the most critical moments of his public career. There his children, young as they were, were made familiar with the union of wisdom and playfulness with which he guided them, and with the simple and self-denying habits of which he gave them so striking an example. By that ancestral home, in the vaults of the Abbey Church of Dunfermline, would have been his natural resting-place. Those vaults had but two years ago been opened to receive the remains of another of the same house, his brother, General Bruce, whose lamented death--also in the service of his Queen and country--followed immediately on his return from the journey in which he had accompanied the Prince of Wales to the East, and in which he had caught the fatal malady that brought him to his untimely end.... How little was it thought by those who stood round the vault at Dunfermline Abbey, on July 2, 1862, that to those familiar scenes, and to that hallowed spot, the chief of the race would never return. How mournfully did the tidings from India reach a third brother in the yet farther East, who felt that to him was due in great part whatever success he had experienced in life, even from the time when, during the elder brother's Eton holidays, he had enjoyed the benefit of his tuition, and who was indulging in dreams how, on their joint return from exile, with their varied experience of the East, they might have worked together for some great and useful end.[6]

'He sleeps far away from his native land, on the heights of Dhurmsala; a fitting grave, let us rejoice to think, for the Viceroy of India, overlooking from its lofty height the vast expanse of the hill and plain of these mighty provinces--a fitting burial beneath the snow-clad Himalaya range, for one who dwelt with such serene satisfaction on all that was grand and beautiful in man and nature--

Pondering God's mysteries untold,
And, tranquil as the glacier snows,
He by those Indian mountains old
Might well repose.

'A last home, may we not say, of which the very name, with its double signification, was worthy of the spirit which there passed away--"the Hall of Justice, the Place of Rest." Rest, indeed, to him after his long "laborious days," in that presence which to him was the only complete Rest --the presence of Eternal Justice.'

[1] One of the Indian journals of the day described the ceremony as
follows:--'On Wednesday afternoon, the few Europeans in the station
collected at five o'clock in the Memorial Garden and Monument. None,
who had seen the spot after the subsidence of the Mutiny could
recognise in the well-planned and well-kept garden, with its two
graveyards, and the beautiful central Monument on its grassy mound,
the site of the horrid slaughter-house which then stood in blood-
stained ruin about the well, choked with the victims of the foulest
treachery the world has ever seen.... The ceremonial was as simple as
it well could be, and few ceremonies could be more impressive.... The
Viceroy advanced to the top of the steps of the Memorial, and, through
the Commissioners, formally requested the Bishop to consecrate that
spot, and the adjacent burial-places. The Bishop, taking his place,
then headed a procession of the clergy and the people present, and
proceeded round the two burial-places and the interior of the Memorial
itself, with music playing and soldiers chanting the 49th, 115th,
139th, and 23rd Psalms. After this, his chaplain read the form of
consecration, which was signed by the Bishop; and, the 90th Psalm
having been sung, he shortly addressed those present in most feeling,
manly, and impressive terms befitting the occasion; and the ceremonial
concluded with prayers read by the chaplain of the station, closing
with the benediction by the Bishop.' The Bishop was the lamented
George Cotton. See his Life, p. 286.

[2] _The Company and the Crown._ By the Hon. T. J. Hovell-
Thurlow.

[3] One of the side valleys which run up northwards from the main
valley of the Beas.

[4] For permission to use this narrative the Editor has to thank
not only its author, Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster (and it is
but a small part of the obligations to him connected with this work),
but also the proprietors of the _North British Review_, in which it
appeared.

[5] 'The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.'--_Commercial
Discourses_, No. IX.

[6] That third brother, Sir Frederick Bruce, was laid in that same
vault, when his remains were brought home from Boston, where he was
suddenly cut off in 1867 at his post as Minister to the United States.