Nine days after Lord Lawrence signed his political testament, Lord Mayo reached Calcutta. On the new Viceroy devolved the heavy responsibility of carrying out the transition policy, somewhat vaguely indicated by his predecessor, in such a way as to disclose no break in the continuity of the Indian Government. In March 1869, the Amir Sher Ali, who had meanwhile consolidated his power in Afghanistan, came in state to India to pay his respects to the new Governor-General. I do not propose to record the splendours of the Ambala Darbar. All well-managed Darbars are imposing, and form an oriental edition of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. I had the privilege of being a guest of the Viceroy at the historical gathering of troops, Native Princes, and British {125} administrators which encamped on the Ambala Plain. But if I were to enter on the spectacular aspects of an Indian Viceroy's career this book would swell far beyond the limits assigned to it. My business is with the less imposing but more permanent work actually accomplished. From the moment the Amir crossed our frontier he was received with a magnificence of hospitality which deeply impressed him. At Lahor he let fall the words, 'I now begin to feel myself a King.' Sher Ali came to India with five distinct objects in view. He desired, in the first place, a treaty. In the second place, he hoped for a fixed annual subsidy. In the third place, for assistance in arms or in men, to be given 'not when the British Government might think fit to grant, but when he might think it needful to solicit it.' In the fourth place, for a well-defined engagement, 'laying the British Government under an obligation to support the Afghan Government in any emergency; and not only that Government generally, but that Government as vested in himself and his direct descendants, and in no others.'[1] Finally, he cherished a desire that he might obtain some constructive act of recognition by the British Government in favour of his younger son, Abdulla Jan, whom he brought with him, and whom he wished to make his heir, to the exclusion of his elder son, Yakub Khan, who had helped him to win the throne. [Footnote 1: Minute in Council, by the Hon. Sir John Strachey, G.C.S.I., sometime acting Governor-General, dated 30th April, 1872.]