Page:The Earl of Mayo.djvu/200

192 on the return passage across the Bay of Bengal, and then to inspect the Province of Orissa. In each of these three places, weighty questions of internal policy demanded his presence. After completing his work in Burma, he cast anchor off Hopetown in the Andamans at 8 A.M. on the 8th February, 1872. A brilliant party of officials and guests accompanied the Viceroy and the Countess of Mayo in H. M.'s frigate Glasgow, and on the attendant steamship Dacca.

Lord Mayo landed immediately after breakfast, and during a long day conducted a thorough inspection of Viper and Ross Islands, where the worst characters were quartered. Ample provisions had been made for his protection. A detachment of free police, armed with muskets, moved with the Governor-General's party in front, flank, and rear. The prisoners were strictly kept at their ordinary work; and on Viper and Ross Islands, the only ones where any danger was apprehended, the whole troops were under arms. One or two convicts, who wished to present petitions, handed them to an officer in attendance, without approaching the Viceroy; and the general feeling among the prisoners was one of self-interested satisfaction, in the hope of indulgences and pardons in honour of the visit.

The official inspection was concluded about 5 o'clock. But Lord Mayo desired, if possible, to create a sanitarium, where the fever patients might shake off their clinging malady. He thought that Mount Harriet, a