The show of troops was slightly increased {178} when the recalcitrant quarter was visited, but this precaution had due effect, and no violence took place. After about six weeks of unsparing toil and incredible devotion, it was becoming clear that the labours of all those concerned were not in vain: the returns were showing a steady and unmistakable decline. But this had not been accomplished without very great persistence on every side. The General writes: "I hope I shall hold out all right, but the strain is pretty severe; some of my Committee are feeling it, but have not broken down yet. We are working from fourteen to eighteen hours in the day, which does not give me much time for writing." That he won the loyal support of all his colleagues is clear from the following letter: "... The General is keeping very well; the amount of work he gets through is tremendous. There is one thing about him that has struck me very much, and that is the extraordinary personal influence he quite unconsciously exerts over the men working under him. A Surgeon-Colonel H---- has been sent down from Chitral for plague duty here, and he dislikes the whole thing. He had congenial work up there, a lovely climate, snow and frost, a nice house with a lovely garden; and he has come down to work in the slums of Bombay at the hottest time of the year, with no friends in the place, and a most enervating climate. He says that if any one else but General Gatacre was at the head of affairs, he would resign to-morrow. {179} Major B---- is the same. His staff appointment will be up in October; he has eight months' leave due to him, and would have taken it if there had been any other General here. But he knows how busy General Gatacre is with the plague, and feels that it would be hard on him to get a new A.A.G. just now. And Major B---- is a hard-headed man, with, one would think, little sentiment about him. But I could give you many instances. Captain C---- of the Bombay Infantry, who is working as a secretary in the office, is only staying because General Gatacre is the Chief.... The General had a great dinner last month for all the medical men in Bombay, and as they refrained from discussing the plague, or their methods of treating it, it went off very well. Last week we had another dinner of twenty-four, to which all the Russian, German, and Austrian scientists and all the foreign consuls were invited; it was a decidedly interesting evening." On April 30 the General writes: "... We are still struggling with the plague, and though it is milder in Bombay it is still dreadfully severe in the provinces all around. We have now been put on to take up the provinces, and it is like paying the labourers of an enormous town when our pay-day comes on.... The work and worry here is unceasing, and I really don't know when we shall be out of the wood." And again a fortnight later: