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116 — and again, 'I am fastened to the post by a chain for several years, unless meanwhile the chain shall snap.' But with a rally he declares that he will brace himself with all his remaining energies for the government of his own Provinces. And the resistless movement of progress is displayed by him before a world that little knows the suffering he has to endure.

Towards the end of 1851 he visits the Punjab, marching as far as Lahore. There he meets his old official friends, and above all he sees Montgomery in the full tide of success. On his way back to his own Provinces he sends Montgomery a memento with some touching words — 'if such be God's good will we may meet again on earth — but that will little matter so long as we can look with certainty to another ultimate meeting, unalloyed by sin and sorrow, unclouded by the apprehension of its termination.' In fact the parting at Lahore was final, for these two loving brothers never met again.

Thus the bark of the Government year after year, his hand being on the helm, moved through the troublesome waves of events with a steadiness seldom vouchsafed to Governments in India. Probably no Government has ever enjoyed such an even tenour in its ways as his. No ruler of India has ever understood better than he how to lubricate the machinery of administration, its wheels, its joints, its motive powers. Immense was the number of short letters, private or demi-official, brief and pointed but kindly