duct with courtesy towards others. His considerateness regarding the comfort and convenience of those around him was unfailing. He was constantly diffusing graceful kindnesses in all directions. While residing here in summer he seized the occasion for a kind of hospitality which was in that day, and perhaps still is, practised by high officials in most parts of India, but which he practised to a degree rarely attained. European officers who came to join his government, or to serve under him in any capacity, would be invited to stay with him for a few days. The men thus invited had full opportunity of learning his views and of exchanging ideas with him, the result naturally being that they became attached to his policy and imbued with his principles. He had much fluency in conversation, and his thoughts would be gently distilled like the dew. Young men, almost youths, just arrived from England would be impressed by his gracious kindness in a strange land, and fell at once under the spell of his influence. Many officers, who themselves have afterwards risen to fame and power, would acknowledge that they first drew their inspiration from these hospitalities at Agra.
In the hot season there was hardly any amusement indoors or out of doors save one, namely the swimming bath, the breadth and capacity of which, under the roof of the Government House, would astonish new comers from Europe. The boisterousness of aquatic exercises made the spirits of men rise high, despite the depressing heat. Thomason himself, though like the Romans of
