A few years of tolerable government would make
it the finest country in India, for there is no part of India with so
many advantages from nature. I have seen no soil finer; the whole
plain of which it is composed is capable of tillage; it is everywhere
intersected by rivers, flowing from the snowy chain of the Himmalaya,
which keep the moisture near the surface at all times, without
cutting up any of the land on their borders into deep ravines; it is
studded with the finest groves and single trees, as much as the lover
of the picturesque could wish; it has the boldest and most
industrious peasantry in India, and a landed aristocracy too strong
for the weak and wretched Government; it is, for the most part, well
cultivated; yet with all this, one feels, in travelling over it, as
if he was moving among a people suffering under incurable physical
diseases, from the atrocious crimes every day perpetrated with
impunity, and the numbers of suffering and innocent people who
approach him, in the hope of redress, and are sent away in despair.
I think your conclusion regarding the source of the signs you saw of
beneficial interference in the north-west provinces a fair one. A
Lieutenant-Governor is able to see all parts of the country under his
charge every year, or nearly all; and while he is sufficiently
"monarch of all he surveys" to feel an interest in, and to provide
for the general good, he has a sufficient knowledge of the internal
management of particular districts to control the proceedings of the
local officers.
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