My sense of right and justice make me record facts as they strike me, and yet I cannot help acknowledging as I do so, that the Government of India is the best government in the world. When has India been so governed, and what country in Europe has such an able and just administration? Surrounded by difficulties, material, financial and political, badgered by ignorant members of the House of Commons, for ever asking foolish questions and moving foolish resolutions; the stately bureaucracy plods steadily on with one object in view, the good of the people. If at times it makes mistakes, who does not? The greatest General is he who makes fewest mistakes, and, judged by this standard alone, the Government of India has the first rank among governing bodies. It has, however, a title to honour which no one can assail. It is the only instance in history of a body of foreigners who govern an Empire, not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of the races committed by Providence to their charge. May Providence long watch over it! NOTES [1] Resolution. Political Department, No. 87, 1872. [2] Birmingham Daily Post, June 15, 1895. [3] Printed official reports. [4] One of the witnesses at the trial of the Regent and Senaputtee of Manipur, in 1891, stated that Mr. Quinton was partly induced to enter the palace from which he never emerged alive, by the Manipuris saying, "Are you not our deity?"--Ed. [5] The Assam Administration Report of 1877-8 writes of it as "notoriously unhealthy, and it had long been proposed to move the troops to a higher and less feverish spot."--Ed. [6] When I first went to Assam almost all elephant-catching was done by noosing. [7] The country bordering on the Bhootan Dooars in the Ringpore district. [8] See subsequent sketch of Naga tribes in Chapter III. [9] Sir James (then Lieut.) Johnstone headed a party to clear an Assamese village from a panther that had killed several natives and was terrifying the district. It retreated into a house which he ordered to be pulled down, and as his men were thus engaged it sprang from a window on to his shoulder. With his other arm--the left--he fired at it behind his back and wounded it sufficiently to make it loose its hold, and rush off into the jungle, where it was killed in the course of the afternoon. His arm was terribly injured, and he always considered that he owed complete recovery of the use of it to the kindness and skill of an English medical friend who came from a great distance to attend him. Every one else who was wounded by the same panther died.--Ed. [10] Captain Butler was struck by a spear from a Naga ambuscade, near the village of Pangti in the Naga Hills on December 25, 1876. He died on January 7. He had held the appointment of Political Agent for seven years, and was the son of Colonel Butler, the author of 'Scenes in Assam' and 'A Sketch in Assam,' the earliest accounts of that eastern border.--Ed.