Page:John Russell Colvin.djvu/78

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70
JOHN RUSSELL COLVIN

unlike human creatures.' Food is daily distributed; sometimes 200, sometimes 700 are fed; we get all our supplies from Oudh, where there is no famine. On January 13 the camp crosses the Ganges into Rohilkhand, passing out of the famine tract, as it must pass out of these pages.

The whole life of a Governor-General of India is in truth a march; his term of office, one brief procession. Viceroy after Viceroy passes with his suite. Scarcely has one had time to look round his camping-ground before his successor's tents are approaching. The golden Rájás salám to them as they come, and speed them as they leave. Brilliant horsemen curvet about them. My lady, wreathed in smiles, is devoured by mortal ennui. Sweet young princes arrive, shy and silent at first, yet most comparative, rascalliest too. The great man, alighting, jokes; the company and the cannon roar. These all come and go. The villagers remain, and suffer hunger. There remains too, the great field of British administration, with its groups of unremembered workers. They furnish the humble labour by whose exertions every new arrival is passed on his way. Long after each Viceroy has returned westward to titles, to honours, to a banquetting Mansion House, a gracious Windsor, these adscripti glebae remain. After the dust, the din, and the salutes are forgotten, they will be still found at their ungrateful toil; at the task of breaking the stubborn soil, sowing the seed of progress, and watching the scanty harvest. As the night approaches, when no