increased at the close of the year when the
Viceroy concluded an important treaty with the Khan of Khelat in
Baluchistan. It would take us too far from our main path to turn aside
into the jungle of Baluchee politics. Suffice it to say that the long
series of civil strifes in that land had come to an end largely owing to
the influence of Major (afterwards Sir Robert) Sandeman. His fine
presence, masterful personality, frank, straightforward, and kindly
demeanour early impressed the Khan and his turbulent Sirdars. In two
Missions which he undertook to Khelat in the years 1875 and 1876, he
succeeded in stilling their internal feuds and in clearing away the
misunderstandings which had arisen with the Indian Government. But he
saw still further ahead. Detecting signs of foreign intrigue in that
land, he urged that British mediation should, if possible, become
permanent. His arguments before long convinced the new Viceroy, Lord
Lytton, who had at first doubted the advisability of the second Mission;
and in the course of a tour along the north-west frontier, he held at
Jacobabad a grand Durbar, which was attended by the Khan of Khelat and
his once rebellious Sirdars. There on December 8, 1876, he signed a
treaty with the Khan, whereby the British Government became the final
arbiter in all disputes between him and his Sirdars, obtained the right
of stationing British troops in certain parts of Baluchistan, and of
constructing railways and telegraphs. Three lakhs of rupees were given
to the Khan, and his yearly subsidy of Rs. 50,000 was doubled[301].

[Footnote 301: _Sir Robert Sandeman_, by T.H. Thornton, chaps, ix.-x.;
Parl. Papers relating to the Treaty . . . of 8th Dec. 1876; _The Forward
Policy and its Results_, by R.I. Bruce; _Lord Lytton's Indian
Administration,_ by Lady Betty Balfour, chap. iii.

The Indian rupee is worth sixteen pence.]

The Treaty of Jacobabad is one of the most satisfactory diplomatic
triumphs of the present age. It came, not as the sequel to a sanguinary
war, but as a sign of the confidence inspired in turbulent and sometimes
treacherous chiefs by the sterling qualities of those able frontier
statesmen, the Napiers, the Lawrences, General Jacob, and Major
Sandeman. It spread the _pax Britannica_ over a land as large as Great
Britain, and quietly brought a warlike people within the sphere of
influence of India. It may be compared with Bonaparte's Act of Mediation
in Switzerland (1803), as marking t