'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