We ought, I suppose, to have been prepared for such an event, seeing that he was within a few months of his ninetieth birthday; but he was so well and active, and took such a keen interest in all that was going on, especially anything connected with India, that we hardly realized his great age, and always hoped we might see him once more.

He had received the G.C.B.from Her Majesty's hands at Windsor on the 8th December, and two days afterwards he wrote me an account of the ceremony, and expressed himself much pleased and gratified at the Queen's gracious manner to him.

He said nothing about his health, but we heard later that he had taken cold in the train on his way home, and never recovered from the effects; he died on the 30th of December.

His love for India had not been weakened by his twenty years' absence from the country, and he never wearied of being told of the wonderful changes which had taken place since his day--changes which, for the most part, dated from the Mutiny, for up till 1857 life in India was much the same as when my father first landed in the beginning of the century.
A continued drought in Behar was at this time causing grave fears of a famine, such as from time to time had desolated various parts of India.

Nine years before such a drought, and the absence of means of communication, which prevented grain being thrown into the famine-stricken districts in sufficient quantities, resulted in one-fourth of the population of Orissa being carried off by starvation, or disease consequent on starvation.