Page:The Earl of Mayo.djvu/101

Rh At first. Lord Mayo worked at night, carrying on the labours of the day long after his guests and household were asleep. But India soon taught him that her climate put limits even on a strongly-built constitution like his own, and he had to give up the practice. It may be imagined that much accurate prevision was required to lay out the paper side of Lord Mayo's work described above, so that it might be as little as possible interfered with by the more public functions of the Viceregal office. His interviews with each of his Secretaries, and the meetings of his Executive and Legislative Councils, were fixed for specified hours on certain days, and from the printed scheme on his table no departure was permitted. But a large mass of ceremonial and personal business could not be thus laid out beforehand.

One day it was a foreign embassy, or a great feudatory who had come a thousand miles with his retinue to pay his respects; another day it was the return visit of the Viceroy; a third day it was the laying of some foundation-stone; a fourth, the inspection of a local institution or hospital; a fifth, a rapid run upon a railway to see some new works, or examine a bridge across a deltaic estuary hitherto deemed uncontrollable by engineering skill; a sixth, the letting in of the water at the head-lock of a canal; a seventh, a great speech as Chancellor of the Calcutta University, or some words of encouragement at the distribution of prizes at a college or school. No hard-and-fast scheme could provide for