[Pageheading: DEATH OF LADY CANNING]

_Earl Canning to Queen Victoria._

BARRACKPORE, _22nd November 1861_.[65]

Lord Canning presents his humble duty to your Majesty. Your Majesty
will have heard by the last mail of the heavy blow which has fallen
upon Lord Canning. The kindness of your Majesty to Lady Canning has
been so invariable and so great that he feels it to be right that
your Majesty should receive a sure account of her last illness with as
little delay as possible.

The funeral is over. It took place quite privately at sunrise on the
19th. There is no burial-place for the Governor-General or his family,
and the cemeteries at Calcutta are odious in many ways: Lord Canning
has therefore set a portion of the garden at Barrackpore (fifteen
miles from Calcutta) apart for the purpose. It is a beautiful
spot--looking upon that reach of the grand river which she was so
fond of drawing--shaded from the glare of the sun by high trees--and
amongst the bright shrubs and flowers in which she had so much
pleasure.

Your Majesty will be glad, but not surprised, to know of the deep
respect which has been paid to her memory, not only by the familiar
members of the household and intimate friends, who refused to let any
hired hands perform the last offices, but by the Civil and Military
bodies, and by the community at large. The coffin was conveyed to
Barrackpore by the Artillery, and was borne through the Garden by
English soldiers.

Lord Canning feels sure that your Majesty will not consider these
details as an intrusion. He feels sure of your Majesty's kind
sympathy. She loved your Majesty dearly, and Lord Canning is certain
that he is doing what would have been her wish in thus venturing to
write to your Majesty. In the last connected conversation which he had
with her, just before the illness became really threatening, she said
that she must write again to the Queen, "for I don't want her to think
that it was out of laziness that I was not at Allahabad." The fact is,
that she had always intended to be present at the Investiture, and had
made all her arrangements to go from Darjeeling to Allahabad for the
purpose; but Lord Canning, hearing of the bad state of the roads,
owing to the heavy and unseasonable rains, and knowing how fatiguing
an additional journey of nearly 900 miles would be, had entreated her
to abandon the intention, and to stay longer in the Hills, and then go
straight to Calcutta. Whether all mi