yesterday.  The value of those estates will be greatly enhanced by the completion of the important work of which we are about to-day to celebrate the opening.  I need hardly remind them that they will owe this advantage to the introduction of British engineering skill and British capital into this country.  I trust that the consideration of this fact, and of similar facts which are of daily occurrence, will tend to produce a kindly feeling between the races, by showing them to what an extent they may be mutually useful to each other.  Meanwhile, I hope that the gentlemen whom I am addressing will turn these advantages to account by doing their utmost to improve their properties, and to promote the happiness and welfare of their ryots and dependents.’

[Sidenote:  Railway dinner.]

In the afternoon of the same day he was present at a dinner given in celebration of the opening of the railway from Jumalpore to Benares.  In the course of a speech which he made on that occasion, after referring to the fact that both his predecessors had taken part in similar celebrations, he said:—­

In looking over the published report of these proceedings a few days ago, my attention was arrested by an incident which brought forcibly home to my mind one painful circumstance in which my position here to- day contrasts sadly with that which Lord Canning then occupied.  At a stage in the proceedings of the evening, corresponding to that at which we have now arrived, he departed from the routine prescribed by the programme, and invited the company to join him in drinking the health of his noble predecessor, the Marquis of Dalhousie, who had, as he justly observed, nursed the East Indian Railway in its infancy, and guided it through its first difficulties.  It is not in my power to make any similar proposal to you now.  A mysterious dispensation of Providence has removed from this world’s stage, where they seemed still destined to play so noble and useful a part, both the proposer of this toast, and its object.  The names of both are written in brilliant characters on some of the most eventful pages of the history of India, and both were removed at a time when expectation as to the services which they might still render to India was at its height.  I shall not now dwell on the great national loss which we have all sustained in this dispensation; but, perhaps, I may be permitted to say that to me the loss is not only a public one, but a private and personal calamity likewise.  Both of these distinguished men were my contemporaries, both, I believe I may without presumption say, my intimate friends.  It is a singular coincidence that three successive Governors-General of India should have stood towards each other in this relationship of age and intimacy.  One consequence is that the burden of governing India has devolved upon us respectively at different periods of our lives.  Lord Dalhousie when named to the Government of India was, I believe, the