ves 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 ab