And the peculiar conditions of India made the realisation of that idea not only possible but inevitable. Through the whole of her story Hindustan has been a land of constant strife between various races settled on her soil and between those settled races and warlike tribes coming down upon her from the north through the passes of her great boundary mountains, the Himalayas. But the greatest cleavage of all among her people was that which still exists between the Moslems and the Hindus of the Buddhist faith. All the many divisions have been causes of jealousies and fighting, but none so constant and prolonged as those due to these two opposed faiths. It is that opposition, in the main, which has made the British Empire in India both possible and necessary--possible, because without that cleavage there might well have been a union of native strength sufficient to withstand the British domination, and necessary, because at every step the British found their trade and their peace imperilled by disturbances beyond the latest limits within which they had made good their authority. They were impelled, for their own mere safety, to push that authority further and further again. And it was a necessity imposed on them also by consideration for the sufferings of the natives in some of the worst governed States. It was a veritable "white man's burden" laid, of no will of their own, and sometimes sorely against their will, upon their shoulders. [Illustration: WARREN HASTINGS] {147} Warren Hastings had to stand a prolonged trial on his return home for what almost certainly were acts of exceeding harshness in his dealings with some of the native rulers. He was acquitted; and it is not possible for us now to try him over again. Almost certainly he dealt very hardly; but almost as certainly no man who did not deal very hardly could have done {148} what he did to bring a large part of India under a government which gave its subjects greater peace and happiness than they had known before.