tion is mainly due to the energy displayed by Captain Playfair, now Her Majesty's Consul at Zanzibar, who, being left long in charge, spared nothing, and money least of all, in the successful execution of this work.

The island of Perim is dependent upon the peninsula of Aden, being situated in the centre of the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. It is small, flat, arid, and worthless; and the meagre company, detached from the garrison of Aden for its defence, would be of less value to serve the guns commanding the narrow entrance to the Red Sea, than they actually are as a security for the burning of the light watched for with anxiety by every pilot as he nears that channel. The blustering menace expressed by France at the date of our attachment of the island of Perim was so much capital expended on an unremunerative object. It has since become palpable to all that for offensive purposes Perim is powerless; while its defence could not be maintained in so isolated a position without a force vastly superior to its strategic value. Perim is not a fortress, but a light-station; and the eloquence of France and the threats of her colonels have failed to construe the encouragement of commerce into an act of political aggression.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MILITARY DEPARTMENT.

In previous chapters some space has necessarily been devoted to military deeds and men, but without encroaching on the place reserved for notice of the profession whose history they adorn; for in the East a soldier's duties cannot be kept within the limits of camp life, and the force of his example extends far beyond the small circumference whence his watch-fires may be seen. Half a century ago the duties of an Indian soldier to the English Crown embraced even wider fields of action than is the case to-day. Less liable to barren criticism, a broader scope was left for the unembarrassed exercise of character and genius; and while it was impossible for a commander to shield himself from the responsibility attaching to his office by endless reference to headquarters, no general could be blind to the fact that the prestige of the blood shed by Clive and Warren Hastings might easily be sacrificed in one campaign. Thus place and power then really went together, and each conveyed some sense of its responsibility to him who held it, by force of actual fact, and not by reason of the fear of having tardy

tactics watched with ill-disguised impatience, and military distances measured upon the Horse Guards' maps by the light of letters from a correspondent of the 'Times.'

A combination of the difficulties of both these positions may be said, however, to have been embraced in Lord Clyde's Indian career. He, perhaps more than any of his predecessors, might feel that one day's insuccess, or even doubtful gain, would more than neutralise the prolonged victory of a century; and he moreover entered on his duties at a moment when national anxiety for India in England had reached its highest pitch, and when each British tax-payer considered that his status as a free-born Briton, not less than parental fondness for a younger son who had perchance embraced an Eastern life, entitled him to know the programme of reconquest. Sense of responsibility is of two kinds-legitimate, for the ultimate result of the interests at stake; and illegitimate, for fear of the discredit entailed by failure. Both of these Lord Clyde might well experience. He had been essentially the soldier of good fortune, who, raised to high command by past successes dearly won at the hands of worthy enemies, might not unnaturally be supposed to shrink from the possibility of dulling in some Indian fight the lustre of a long life's achievements. Besides, though suffering less than many from a morbid consciousness of the magnitude of the game he played, he yet possessed a full and healthy knowledge of the heavy liability incurred by one who led the vengeful hosts which England had sent out to buy back with still more blood a land

already reddened by the sword. To this just appreciation of his own position, Lord Clyde's good fortune further added the not inconsiderable advantage of having to narrate his doings in the East the pen of Dr Russell, who, from long familiarity with both the pains and pleasures of campaigning, knew how to keep the British public satisfied with accurate details, without assuming, as he might, the easier part of censor and reformer. Finally, the condition of events was such as to leave Lord Clyde more untrammelled than any General in the field since the era of the first Napoleon. The Indian telegraph by sea was not then laid, while that by land was everywhere destroyed or in the enemy's hands; he had at his beck and call men devoted to himself by past association, and in Sir William Mansfield he, first alone, but later joined by all the military world, recognised the ablest soldier of our time.

But it is not our intention to emulate the zeal of octogenarian heroes, who never tire of fighting wellfought battles yet once more. Too many books have helped to cast an insufficient light upon the acts in which their authors played at best a poor third part; and we must rest content with the attempt to trace some faint outline of the relative positions occupied by soldier and civilian-showing how each now wears the other's mask, how the civilian of an earlier day, having the command of soldiery, was martial to excess, while now, that the rupees he monthly earns are owing to success in arms alone, but little love is lost between the services.

This mutual jealousy has constantly afforded cause

for scandal, and not unfrequently produced results most baneful to the public interests. Formerly, in times of great excitement, or when some long-pending measure required immediate carrying-out, the difficulty was often met by joining in one man's hands the reins of military and civil rule. The biography of Lord Cornwallis affords more than one example of such a combination, necessary at the time, but invariably dissolved when the necessity had passed away. But when two men of equal ambition and genius for usurping every field of action meet on the theatre of Indian life, difficulty invariably ensues. The last instance of such difficulty, growing from a mere personal feeling of dislike, or what Sir Cresswell Cresswell might have termed "incompatibility of temper," into a public animosity, such as to make it impossible for civil and military authorities to work in double harness, occurred in Lord Dalhousie's time, when Sir Charles Napier, rendered the weaker vessel by the glowing administrative successes of the Governor-General, was shattered in the contest and recalled.

A much-abetting cause of these dissensions doubtless may be found in the constitution of what are termed the "Civil Regiments." These consist of corps enrolled rather for political reasons than as arms of Imperial warfare or defence, and as such they are subject to the sole control of the Governor-General, to the exclusion of the authority of the Commander-in-Chief. Queen's officers are appointed to them as vacancies occur; and these appointments being highly paid, and affording special opportunities for distinction, are much coveted,