he adopted in order at once to get through his
work, and to obtain a competent knowledge of persons whose opinions were
worth having.

I have two or three people to dine with me on every day on which I
have not a great dinner. By this means I get acquainted with
individuals, and if my bees have any honey in them I extract it at the
moment of the day when it is most gushing.[2] It is very convenient,
besides, because it enables me to converse by candlelight with persons
who want to talk to me about their private affairs, instead of wasting
daylight upon them. Unless I get out of sorts, I hope to become
personally acquainted in this way with everyone, whose views may be
useful to me, before I leave Calcutta, even to go to Barrackpore.

As the season went on, the heat became greater. 'For the last few days,' he
wrote on June 1, 'it has been _very_ hot; quite as hot, they say, as it
ever is. I am longing for the rains, which are to cool us, I am told.' The
rains came, and, so long as they continued to fall, the temperature was
lower: but 'the heavy, dull, damp, calm heat between the falls,' he found
most trying.

[Sidenote: Death of Lord Canning.]

On July 6 came a fresh shock to his feelings--a fresh omen of evil to
himself--in a telegraphic report of the death of the friend whose place he
had so recently taken. At first he could hardly bring himself to credit the
news.

Is it indeed true (he wrote to Lady Elgin)? The last rumour of the
kind was the report of my death, when I was mistaken for Eglinton; but
this time I fear it is only too true! It will add to the alarm which
India inspires. But poor Canning certainly never gave himself a good
chance; at least not during the last year or two of his reign here. He
took no exercise, and not even such relaxation of the mind as was
procurable, though that is not much in the situation of Governor-
General. When I told him that I should ask two or three people to dine
with me daily, in order to get acquainted with all the persons I ought
to know, and to talk matters over with them by candlelight, so as to
save daylight for other work, he said: 'I was always so tired by
dinner-time that I could not speak.' Perhaps he was only referring to
his later experience; but still it was enough to break down any
constitution, to wear oneself out for ever by the same train of
thought, and the s