ABSTRACT
High upon the hill-side at Simla, there will stand soon a group of English, Scotch, and Irish gentlemen, looking over the great plain below, and remarking to one another how much the prospect had changed lately, and how the grey-brown jungle has been slowly supplanted by the brilliant emerald green of the cotton plant, and by a thousand threads of silver water from the irrigation trenches. They will be hoping that Lawrence will succeed poor Lord Elgin,1 and that he will not be sacrificed in that accursed Calcutta; they will be wondering how it fares with Crawley. Then a dawk will toil up the hill-side with the mail; and in a few minutes they will be saying, ‘Lawrence is appointed; Crawley is acquitted; but poor Thackeray is dead.’
