Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/160

156 father. The Governor-General could only express his hope that some arrangement might be made between the parties before his acknowledgment of the new sovereign was demanded.

This ghastly story of intrigue and massacre in Nepál must sound almost incredible to the present generation, who only know Jang Bahádúr as the lion of a London season and the ally of England during the Mutiny. To us at the time in India it recalled the bulletins of similar proceedings which we had been accustomed to receive from Lahore before the Sikh invasion. In Eastern countries such tragedies have from time immemorial been incidental to a disputed succession. And those critics who are disposed to condemn the extension of British rule in India, should bear in mind that it has given protection not only to the population at large, but also to the native princes who still retain the administration of their own dominions.

On his way to Lucknow, where his presence was required to administer a personal rebuke to the King of Oudh for his intolerable maladministration, the Governor-General halted for a few days in the neighbourhood of the Tarái, in order to witness a tiger hunt. Although he had lost one hand he was an excellent shot, resting his gun on what remained of his left arm. The 'battue' was organised almost on military principles, the beaters consisting of no less than seventy elephants in line. A larger number may have been collected when the Prince of Wales visited