§15. In 1856 Lord Dalhousie left India for ever. He had alarmed Anglo-Indians of the old school by his energetic promotion of moral and material progress without regard to the ignorance or prejudices of the Asiatic populations; but besides his grander measures, he carried out a thousand and one smaller reforms which to this day are felt and appreciated by Asiatics as well as by Europeans. It was Lord Dalhousie who introduced cheap postage; who caused Calcutta to be lit with gas; who purified the south-west breezes of fever and malaria by clearing the jungles of the Sunderbunds; who sat by the cradle of the new legislative council of 1854, and thus nourished the earliest germ of representative government which British rule had planted in India. In a word, Lord Dalhousie prepared the way for that great measure which will be told in a future chapter, namely, the transfer of the government of India from the East India Company to the British Crown. [Sidenote: Lord Canning 1856-62. War with Persia, 1856-7.] §16. Lord Canning succeeded Lord Dalhousie in 1856. To all outward appearance there was no cause for alarm in any part of India. Persia had again laid siege to Herat, as she had done in 1837; but the British government had come to an understanding with old Dost Mohammed of Cabul, and had given him money and arms. A mission was sent to Candahar under Major (now Sir Peter) Lumsden. A British expedition was sent to the Persian Gulf under Sir James Outram, and captured Bushire. Eventually Persia withdrew her pretensions as regards Herat, and peace was concluded in March, 1857. [Sidenote: Status of the "king" at Delhi.] [Sidenote: Proposed removal from Delhi.] Meanwhile the status of the so-called king of Delhi, the relic of the Great Mogul, was under consideration. For more than half a century the family had lived in a palace at Delhi on a yearly pension from the British government. There was much marrying and giving in marriage, and the palace was a hive of princes and princesses without any apparent occupation save that of petitioning for increased pensions. Lord Ellenborough contemplated removing the family from Delhi, but the measure was postponed. At last Lord Dalhousie took action. The so-called king was very old, and could not live many years. Lord Dalhousie recognised a grandson as successor to the pageant throne, on the condition that when the old king died, the whole family should clear out of Delhi and take up their abode in a royal residence some miles off, known as the Kutub. [Sidenote: Palace intrigues.]