Page:James Thomason (Temple).djvu/111

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THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR
103

process, — and when we say that he marched for several months consecutively in almost every year, it is meant that he and his retinue rode daily from ten to fifteen miles, just as troops would march from one encampment to another, dwelling in tents. The first year of his appointment, in 1843, he did not march, because he assumed charge at Agra shortly before Christmas in that year, that is, in the midst of the marching season; moreover there was war impending in the adjacent territories of Gwalior. Again he refrained from marching during the winter of 1848-9, because at that time the second Punjab war was in vigorous progress beyond his frontier. The resources of military transport were drawn from his territories, and strings of carts with draught bullocks, stretching over an immense length of roadway, were being despatched by his officers to the seat of hostilities. His camp for marching would also need many carts with bullocks, and as the transport had become scarce, he deemed it considerate towards the Natives to refrain from further requisitions of this kind. These two winters excepted, 1843-4, and 1848-9, he set out for the march every year of his incumbency, and he lived to accomplish eight of these annual tours. He thus managed to ride through the various districts under his government about three times, after regular intervals. The dimensions of this achievement may be understood from the fact that from his frontier westward of Delhi to that at Gorakhpur, at the base of the eastern Himálaya, the distance amounted to