Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/35

26 parts by bridges (and not, as is now too often seen, left impassable for two or three months in the year, for want of bridges), but should also have fair district and market roads leading to gháts and marts, subject to periodical repairs, and raised above the level of the country, not made in the beds of streams.

'In short, by intersecting the country with canals, roads, and railroads, we would get to ourselves an imperishable name, strengthen our own hands, enrich the country, and pay ourselves almost immediately. No more then would famine be raging in one part of the empire while grain was a drug in another. Nor would the detachments be cut up while their supports were coming on at the lazy rate of twenty or thirty miles a day .'

In fact, during this period he learnt to know the natives thoroughly, their modes of thought and springs of action, their idiosyncrasies and their prejudices. Sympathizing with them to an exceptional degree, he stored up a knowledge of their wants and needs, their feelings towards their rulers and other sections and classes of the community, their griefs and sufferings from the oppressions of usurers and of the official underlings, and the various drawbacks to their happiness and contentment.

More than all, he became permanently impressed with the keenness of their traditional feelings, and with the conviction that to govern India well and successfully it was essential to secure the confidence of the people and keep in touch with their modes of thought and feeling. He was keenly alive to the