personal intercourse with Lord Dalhousie, and thus formed a friendship which, at first official, soon became personal. After two or three months of this changed life, his old vivacity returned, and his conversation was almost as it had been in England and Ireland. But recurrence of Indian fever after an interval is almost a rule, and his case was no exception. At Simla in the autumn his Lahore fever reappeared severely, just a year after its original appearance. This time he was stronger to meet the attack, and so threw it off. But he rose from the sick-bed, for the second time in thirteen months, with vitality impaired. He was, as the event proved, sufficiently recovered to escape any serious illness for nearly three years, and to work without interruption till 1854. But during this summer of 1851, he calmly reviewed his position. He thus actually prepared himself for closing the important part of his career, and for speedily retiring from the public service. With his usual forethought, and in his unassuming way, he would reckon up his resources, and estimate how to live in some quiet and inexpensive place in England on a modest competency. But Providence decreed otherwise, and the possible necessity, though ever borne in mind, did not reach the point of action. So in the early winter he returned to his post at Lahore, to mix in all the troublous discussions, and to bear the official fatigues which have been already mentioned, until the spring of 1853, from which point our narrative takes a fresh departure. Though now left, in his own phrase, to walk alone--the very course most acceptable to him--he ever remembered his absent brother. In after years he was anxious that Henry’s name should be linked with his own in the annals of the Punjab. At Lahore in 1864, at the culminating point of his fame, and in the plenitude of his authority--when the memory of former differences had long been buried in his brother’s grave--he used these words in a speech to the assembled princes and chiefs of the province: “My brother Henry and I governed this province. You all knew him well, and his memory will ever dwell in your hearts as a ruler who was a real friend of the people. We studied to make ourselves acquainted with the usages, feelings and wants of every class and race, and to improve the condition of all.” CHAPTER VI CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF THE PUNJAB 1853-1857