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178 affording a signal instance of success perfected in a sphere of beneficence.

His own notions of administrative result are thus recorded in a private letter, written after a visit to Ajmere, a detached British district of his, down south amidst the Native States of Rájputána.

'Merwárá is one of our proudest triumphs. The Mers were a wild, ferocious race of plunderers inhabiting that part of the Arávalli Range which stretches from Ajmere to Udipur. No neighbouring State could conquer them, they lived on the plunder of the adjacent plains. In the course of about twenty-five years these people have been changed into a race of well-behaved, peaceful and industrious cultivators, themselves the conservators instead of the disturbers of the public peace. Their hills were covered with impenetrable jungle, but now every valley is full of the richest cultivation. The means by which this has been accomplished were simply these. We first thrashed them soundly, then raised a battalion amongst them (to afford employment); and then by a conciliating, just and moderate rule, secured their confidence. Their industry has been stimulated by the construction of numerous solid masonry embankments, which hold up large supplies of water, and afford them the certain means of irrigation and cultivation.'

The inland Customs were protected by a cordon of several hundred miles between the southern border of these Provinces and the main group of Native States. The tariff had comprised scores of articles; and the reduction of this number had been pressed by Mr. (afterwards Sir Charles) Trevelyan. The matter was taken up by Lord Ellenborough in 1843, when