Barrackpore.—­July 26th.—­I went into Calcutta on the morning of the 23rd, in time to write by the afternoon packet; but I did not write, for I was met on my arrival by a telegraphic rumour, which quite overwhelmed me....  I should hardly have allowed myself to believe that the sad report could be true, had it not been for the account of Robert’s illness, which your last letters had conveyed to me....  Next day another telegram by the Bombay mail of the July 3rd left no doubt as to the name....  A week, however, must elapse before letters arrive with, the intelligence....  I hurried over my business, and came back here yesterday evening.  It is more quiet than Calcutta; and sad, with its one walk terminating (as I have told you) at Lady Canning’s grave.  Poor Robert, how little did I think when we parted that I was never to see him again!  How little at least, that he would be the defaulter!  He has left few equals behind him:  so true, so upright, so steady in his principles, and so winning in his manners.  Of late years we have been much apart, but for very many we were closely together, and perhaps no two brothers were ever more mutually helpful.  Strange, that with Frederick and me in these regions, he should have been carried off first, by a malady which belongs to them.[3]...  I write at random and confusedly, for I have nothing to guide me but that one word.  And yet how much in that one word!  It tells me that I have lost a wise counsellor in difficulties; a stanch friend in prosperity and adversity; one on whom, if anything had befallen myself, I could always have relied to care for those left behind me.  It tells, too, of the dropping of a link of that family chain which has always been so strong and unbroken.

In writing to his second boy he touched the same chords in a different tone.

You have lost (he said) a kind and good uncle, and a kind and good godfather, and you are now the only Robert Bruce in the family.  It is a good name, and you must try and bear it nobly and bravely, as those who have borne it before you have done.  If you look at their lives you will see that they always considered in the first place what they ought to do, and only in the second what it might be most pleasant and agreeable to do.  This is the way to steer a straight course through life, and to meet the close of it, as your dear Uncle did, with a smile on his lips.

[Sidenote:  The hot season.]

From this time his journal contains more and more frequent notices of the oppressive heat of the weather, and its effects upon his own health and comfort.  He remained, however, at his post at Calcutta, with the exception of a brief stay at a bungalow lent to him by Mr. Beadon at Bhagulpore; his pleasantest occupation being the arrangement of plans for smoothing the path of Lady Elgin, who had settled to join him in India.