As Governor-General he had all the power entrusted to that high functionary by the Acts of Parliament settling the Constitution of British India. As Viceroy he represented the Sovereign on all occasions. On his arrival at Calcutta he was greeted most cordially by all classes of his countrymen, from the soldiers and sailors upwards. Loud was the chorus of British voices, thick was the concourse of Natives, as the stately vessel, bearing him as its freight, steamed up the broad reaches of the tidal Hooghly, between banks crowned with groves of the cocoa-nut, the palm and the bamboo, approached the forest of masts in the harbour of the Indian capital, and anchored near the ramparts of Fort William, close to the palace of the Governor-General. Landing in Bengal, he met that section of the Indian population which had but little direct concern in the War of the Mutinies, and was therefore less cognisant of his deeds than the Natives of Northern India; still the Bengalis in their way strove to do him honour. His first levée was one of the most numerously attended levées ever held in Calcutta. He was full of alacrity, and if ever in his life he wore a smiling aspect it was then. Things had heretofore gone well with him in the estimation of all men East and West. The farewell addresses on leaving the Punjab, the addresses of welcome on reaching England, the congratulations at home on his new appointment, the notes of gladness on his return to India, were all present to his mind, and he was breathing the _popularis aura_. Few men, climbing to estate so high as his, have known so little of ungenerous objections or of actual misrepresentation, as he had up to this time. He was hardly prepared, perhaps, for the fitful moods of public opinion in such a country as India, for the wearing anxieties, the lesser troubles, even the annoyances, to be endured at intervals for some years before the moment when he should lay down the supreme power, and again look back with some pride and satisfaction upon another arduous stage accomplished in life’s journey. He came by the overland route in December at the most favourable season of the year and escaped sea-sickness. As sea life was never quite suitable to his temperament, he did not read nor write much during the voyage, but he must have had time to arrange his thoughts respecting the imperial charge which had been committed to him. As a rule, he meant to deal with matters as they should arise--knowing that these would be numerous, and confident in his own power to dispose of them--rather than to shape out any policy or policies in his mind, or to descry any particular goal which he would strive to reach. Nevertheless he landed in India with certain ideas which might, according to his hope, be realised. As they are quite characteristic of him, some allusion may be here made to them.