Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/113

Rh that their forefathers were his mistaken and relentless foes.

The private life of Cornwallis in his high office was pure and consistent, and marked by a wish to avoid display whenever this could be done without a disregard of the hospitality and ceremony looked for at Government House. The editor of the Correspondence notes that Cornwallis rose early, as some officials still do in India, all the year round; mounted a hard-trotting horse; and took a long ride attended by his military secretary and a groom. At table he was abstemious and even sparing in his diet. The soundest medical authorities hold that health in India is best preserved by a generous diet not carried to excess. It has been said by Sir John Kaye that there is scarcely room for personal luxury in India. What, indeed, are superfluities in temperate climates are the absolute necessaries for Indian existence and comfort. The youngest civilian or subaltern writes, eats, and usually sleeps under a punkah for more than half the year, and changes his linen twice in the day, equally with the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief. Routine and regularity are, in fact, prescribed by the inexorable laws of nature for the greater part of the year.

As a general rule it may be laid down, that most men in India go to bed about 10.30 or 11 and rise earlier than they do in England; and that very much of the best work in India, in the shape of Minutes, judgments, reports, correspondence with