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 CHAPTER XII

The End

The narrative has now reached the year 1853, the year fateful to Thomason. It might at first sight be thought that the shadow of his death, looming near us, hangs as a dark cloud on the horizon. But the premature close of such a life as his should rather be likened to a sunset when the orb of light, having run the appointed course here, seems to dip below our horizon towards a brighter existence beyond.

In the North-Western Provinces he had reached, in 1853, his culminating point of authority and influence after just ten years of government since 1843, and had succeeded in carrying out his policy.

The property of the people in their lands had been securely established. The Record of Rights, with the registration of tenures and interests in the soil, of all kinds and degrees, whether pertaining to owners or cultivators, to landlords or tenants, had, he might fairly believe, been at length completed; and all its multifarious details had been deposited in the public record-offices of the various districts with provision