Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/42

34 in the Government. One day's routine may serve as an example of his life during the next eight years. He rose about six, and began the morning, as he ended the evening, by quietly reading a chapter in the Bible. From six to eight he devoted himself to his office-boxes. At eight he breakfasted, glancing from time to time at the Indian newspapers which were laid out on his table. 'At half-past nine,' writes Captain Trotter, 'he would sit down at his desk, which he never quitted, even while he ate his lunch, before half-past five. Eight hours of continuous brain-work was enough, he would say, for any man, and to this rule he generally adhered. His tastes, especially in the matter of food, were simple. He ate little and drank less at the quiet family dinners which he loved.' He hated the huge banquets which form the ceaseless penance of a working Viceroy's life; but he entertained with the magnificence that became his high position. A morning of discomfort and lassitude, during which he painfully spurred himself up to his accustomed rate of labour, was the price which he almost invariably paid for his night of genial hospitality.

Nothing was allowed to interfere with his daily tale of work — neither weariness, nor heat, nor the fatigues of an Indian march. He rode his journies on a fine light-grey Arab, Maharaja, dressed very simply in riding-gear of native "puttoo," and his head well protected with a white pith helmet