had not seen this beautiful Simla since he met Lord Dalhousie there in 1851. Though he said little, he pondered much on all that had happened to him and his since then, the perils escaped, the victories won. After his arrival at Simla having reviewed his own position and prospects, he wrote to Sir Charles Wood, the Secretary of State in London, on this subject. He said explicitly that he found himself unable to work all the year round at Calcutta, and especially in the hot and unhealthy season there; that if he were allowed to spend the summer months in the Himalayas, he could retain his post; otherwise he wished to resign in the spring of the following year and return to England. By Sir Charles Wood’s reply he was requested to stay in office, with the understanding that he might reside wherever he chose within the Himalayas or other hill-regions of India. Regarding his Council the reply was not quite so clear, but in the end it was virtually conceded that he might exercise his own discretion in taking his colleagues with him. At all events he determined to stay for four out of his five allotted years in India, and arranged that his wife should join him at Calcutta by the end of the year 1864. He soon decided that during his tenure of office the Government of India shall, barring unforeseen events, spend the summer months at Simla, that is the Governor-General, the Executive Council, a part of the Legislative Council, and the principal Secretaries. He would not separate himself from them: he did not wish to have them acting at headquarters in many cases without him; nor did he desire to act in some cases alone without them. He thought it better that, with the growing increase of business, they should be all together. At that time it was the fashion to propose various situations in the empire, one in the south another in the west and so on, for the permanent capital and headquarters of the Government of India, involving the abandonment of Calcutta for this purpose; but he objected to all such schemes, considering them to be crude. In the first place, such a move would be inordinately expensive; in the second, Calcutta was, he thought, the best of all available positions. Though it is actually a sea-port, yet its position is by nature rendered unassailable by an attack from the sea; its trade places it in the first rank of mercantile cities; the districts around it are wealthy, fertile, populous and peaceful; these advantages he duly appreciated. During the disturbances of 1857 he remembered that Lower Bengal around Calcutta was undisturbed, and paid its tens of millions of rupees into the State Treasury, and that while half the empire was convulsed, order was preserved at the imperial centre. Thus he would hold fast to Calcutta and settle his Government there, at least during the cool season of each year when trade and industry are in their fullest activity.