gallant Anglo-Indians, as formerly she bore emphatic witness against the then existing neglects." Only the fringe of the evil had been touched; but at any rate enough had been done to show that the old bogey, "the hopeless Indian climate," might in course of time be laid by wise precautions. "There is a vast work going on in India," said Dr. Sutherland; and in this work Miss Nightingale had throughout played a principal, and the inspiring, part. It was the opinion of an unprejudiced expert who, though he admired her devotion, did not always agree with her views or methods, that "of the sanitary improvements in India three-fourths are due to Miss Nightingale."[117] [116] Captain Galton, "On Sanitary Progress in India," 1876 (_Journal of the Society of Arts_, vol. xxiv. pp. 519-534.) This is the best _short_ account of the matter that I have come across. It is more detailed than Miss Nightingale's Paper of 1874. For further particulars, a reader should, of course, refer to the Annual Sanitary Blue-books. [117] So Sir Bartle Frere reported to Miss Nightingale that Sir John Strachey had said to him; and Sir John wrote in much the same sense to Miss Nightingale herself. But here, as in all things, her gaze was fixed upon the path to perfection. In her own mind she counted less the past advance than the future way. There was an Appendix to her Paper in which she preached the supreme importance of Irrigation--of irrigation, that is, combined with scientific drainage. Only by that means, she held, could yet more people "live and not die in India," and could the country be raised to its full productive power. A letter which Sir Stafford Northcote sent her (April 29, 1874), in acknowledgment of her Paper on "Life or Death in India," exactly expressed her own feelings. "How much," he said, "you have done! and how little you think you have done! After all, the measure of our work depends upon whether we take it by looking backwards or by looking forwards, by looking on what has been accomplished or on what has revealed itself as still to be accomplished. When we have got to the top of the mountain, are we much nearer the stars or not?" CHAPTER IV ADVISER-GENERAL ON HOSPITALS AND NURSING (1868-1872) We are your Soldiers, and we look for the approval of our Chief.--MISS AGNES JONES (_Letter to Miss Nightingale_).