Early in May, accordingly, Lord Canning left Simla, and reached Calcutta on the 21st. The task of traversing the great plain of Hindustán in the hottest season of the year is one which no Englishman can accomplish without distress and risk to health. The traveller who, wearied with a six months' official tour and long continuance of public functions, passes from the cool heights of the Himálaya to the blazing plain below, with no relief to be expected but the torrential downpour of the monsoon, lays a tremendous burden on his powers of physical endurance. In Lord Canning's case, the journey was only in too complete accordance with the systematic disregard of every prudential consideration which was undermining his constitution, and which sent him home, two years later, a dying man.
In Calcutta numerous important questions awaited him. The financial trouble was acute. The indigo planters, an important interest by no means inclined to submit to an imagined grievance, had raised a controversy as to their relations to the ráyats, with whom they had to deal and whom they frequently oppressed. The renewal of the measure which imposed the necessity of a licence for carrying arms on Europeans as well as natives gave rise to another storm from the English in Calcutta. Angry meetings assembled in the Town Hall, learned Judges in the Legislative Council gave the weight of their authority against a rule which, considering the events of the two preceding years, Europeans not unnaturally re-
