the nursing
experiment proved a complete success, and now every large military
hospital in India has its staff of nurses, and there are altogether 4
superintendents, 9 deputy superintendents, and 39 nursing sisters, in
India. There are many more wanted in the smaller stations, where there
is often great loss of life from lack of proper nursing, and surely,
as my wife pointed out in her first appeal, 'when one considers what
an expensive article the British soldier is, costing, as he does, L100
before landing in India, it seems certain that on the score of economy
alone, altogether setting aside the humane aspect of the question,
it is well worth the State's while to provide him with the skilled
nursing care' which has up to now saved so many lives.

That officers as well as men might benefit by the devotion of the
'nursing sister,' I was able to arrange in all the large hospitals
for some room, or rooms, used until then for other purposes, to be
appropriated for an officers' ward or wards, and these have proved
a great boon to the younger officers whose income does not admit of
their obtaining the expensive care of a nurse from one of the large
civil hospitals in the Presidency towns.

The next most interesting question, and also the most pressing, which
had to be considered by the Viceroy's Council during the summer of
1886, was the pacification of Upper Burma. People in England had
expressed surprise at this being so long delayed. It is extremely
easy, however, to sit at home and talk of what should be done, but
very difficult to say how to do it, and more difficult still to carry
it out. To establish law and order in a country nearly as large as
France, in which dacoity is looked upon as an honourable profession,
would be no light task even in Europe: but when the country to be
settled has a deadly climate for several months in the year, is
covered to a great extent with jungle, and is without a vestige of
a road, the task assumes gigantic proportions. In Upper Burma the
garrison was only sufficient to keep open communication along the line
of the Irrawaddy, and, to add to the embarrassment of the situation,
disaffection had spread to Lower Burma, and disturbances had broken
out in the almost unknown district between Upper Burma and Assam.

It was arranged to send strong reinforcements to Burma so soon as the
unhealthy season should be over and it would be safe for the troops
to go there, and Lieutenant-General S