Amongst other duties he has to map out and be responsible for the arrangements of all the Viceregal tours in the country, involving the railway journeys, allotting every hour of time each day and night for weeks and months ahead. The moving of horses and carriages, servants, and arranging for everything to be in readiness to meet the viceregal party at all the places where they are going to stay, the officials to be informed at each; levees, drawing-rooms, and receptions to be arranged. The native princes who wish to meet His Excellency have to be communicated with. Attached to these meetings there is endless work, as each Rajah has a certain code of etiquettes, a proper number of guns fired as salutes according to their rank. Some have to be fetched in state to meet the Viceroy; the Military Secretary, an aide-de-camp, and at times other officials having to drive to their palaces and fetch them, taking them back in the same way. These tours are looked forward to by the princes and big landowners of the country, as many of them have grievances and schemes to lay before the representative of the English Royalty. It is difficult for anyone unversed in Eastern ways to realise how much depends on the forethought and experience of the person responsible for all these arrangements. It requires some tact to carry out all efficiently without a hitch, the least little error, even a molehill of a hitch, may mean mountains of annoyance and friction for His Excellency. In all viceregal movements it is essential that there should be much dignity and show, plenty of colour and red druggeting. Ritual and observances are the soul of the people of the East. Established precedents have to be carefully guarded, a yard or two of less red cloth than usual might easily be construed into an indignity. Then there are the presents to be thought of, which it is part of the Viceroy’s duty to dispense, and there is a certain amount of work attached to this, as the different political officers in each district to be visited have to be consulted as to what will be most suitable, and will meet with the approval of each recipient. In addition to all this strenuousness, the domestic details fall to the lot of the Military Secretary; if a handle comes off a door he must see it is replaced, if a goat instead of a sheep finds its way on to the dinner table, if the horses fall sick or the coachman drinks too much tea, if a bath leaks, if more visitors are coming to stay than there is accommodation for, it is the business of the Military Secretary to avert inconvenience or disaster, in fact there must be no inconvenience or disaster, otherwise he is not an efficient Military Secretary.