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English game played between Englishmen and natives in a thoroughly good, sporting, gentlemanly spirit.

And what has produced such a sight, combining the employment of the most educated and cultivated labour in the designing, and abundance of manual labour in the building, of such edifices ?-the legitimate inference, that such buildings must mean entire confidence amongst traders and a great demand for means of locomotion, and great confidence in the rulers that the ruled can manage their local affairs well, displaying a noble charity and a keen recognition of the necessity for education. All this you see in the buildings, and in the crowds a respect for authority and for order, and a growing love for a manly, healthy occupation. And all this has been produced by Pax Britannica; for, remember this, that India had not for hundreds of years known such peace as England has secured for her.

My thoughts linger on Bombay, and I would, if time permitted, dwell on the subject longer, but I must get on to my conclusion, and consider the system by which the affairs of eighteen millions of souls are administered. That is not a very easy or a very light affair. I daresay you think-most people in England do that all a governor of an Indian province has to do is to entertain. Well, my experience was that it required from seven to ten hours a day at the desk every day in the week, including Sundays, all the year round, without a holiday for five years; and most Indian officials work the same, if not more.

First, of course, is the legislative machine, for the orders of the Executive Government should be based on law. There is a Legislative Council formed of some twenty-three members, nominated by the Governor in Council, eight of whom have been selected by certain elected bodies, such as groups of great landowners, the Administrative Divisions, the Municipality of Bombay, and the Chamber of Commerce and the University.

And when this Council meets, the members may ask questions after the manner of the House of Commons. The laws it passes have to be approved by the Government of India and the Secretary of State.

Having been approved, it is for the Executive Government, the Governor in Council, to set them in motion.

The Governor and two colleagues, members of the Indian Civil Service, who have equal powers with the Governor, except that he may overrule them, though I imagine he rarely does, form the Executive Government. They are assisted by departments headed by under-secretaries and secretaries. The Governor and

his colleagues divide the work between them, and the secretaries have to see that important questions are settled by at least two out of the three. The Administration is divided into two main heads, the Revenue and the Judicial; but besides these there are many branches, far too numerous to mention, such Medical, Educational, Political, Municipal, Military, Marine, Ecclesiastical, and Forests.

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The chief revenue officers are the four Commissioners of Divisions. Then each division is divided into a number of districts, over cach of which there is an officer styled the Collector. He is the most important link in the whole chain of administration: everything that happens in his district he has to know about and is consulted about. His collectorate may be as large as 1000 square miles, inhabited by a million and a half souls. He looks after the police, and the hospitals, and the schools, and the roads, and the buildings, and municipal government, and the collection of revenue, and the post office, and the telegraphs, and the forests; every single thing that affects the livelihood of the people in his district he has to know about. He is also the chief magistrate; and he may also be a Political Agent, and the Judge of a Native State.

He has, of course, subordinate revenue officers, an assistant collector, and one or two deputy collectors, the latter probably natives, and under them again officers over a group of villages, and under them again the village officers.

Then he is assisted by a police officer, a forest officer, a doctor, and a public works officer.

This is the chain of administration: the village officer, the Patel, reports to the Mamlutdar, the latter to the Deputy Collector, he to the Assistant Collector, or perhaps straight to the Collector, whence the report goes to the Commissioner, and so up to Government; but of course each has decisive powers more and more limited as you get lower down in the grades.

On the judicial side you have the High Court of Bombay, or the Judicial Commissioner in Sind, and then Judges, Assistant Judges, Special Judges, Small Cause Court Judges, and the Magistrates.

ADEN-SOMALI COAST

I ought to describe these to you, for there are many interesting matters connected with them, but I have left myself no space. I have of course missed out thousands of matters of interest and importance: on each main head that I have taken I could have easily occupied the space allotted to the whole. I feel very conscious that I have treated it but feebly, but that the reader must attribute to want of capacity, not to lack of love of the subject, for to my dying day I shall be grateful that I had the chance of being employed on a mission so interesting and so important, and Bombay, and its peoples, and the officers, and the dear friends I made there, will always be in my affectionate recollection.

SIND

BY ALEXANDER F. BAILLIE, F.R.G.S.

(Author of "Kurrachee, Past, Present, and Future")

THE nearest point of the Indian Empire to the mother country is the seaport of Aden. Geographically it is situated in Arabia, at the southern end of the Red Sea, but nevertheless it forms part and parcel of India, and is immediately under the Government of the Presidency of Bombay, from which city it is distant 1664 miles. Aden was acquired by purchase from the then ruling Sheik by the East India Company, but his son declined to carry out the bargain, and consequently a naval and military expedition was sent out, and captured the place in 1839. Aden was the first addition to the British Crown after the accession of her present Majesty; but in the same year we also acquired, without firing a shot, a miserable little harbour in India proper, called Kurrachee or Karachi, which under the fostering hand of the British Government has grown, during a period of about half a century, to be the third in importance of all the seaports of the Indian Empire.

At that time it had a population of 10,000 inhabitants; it now has 110,000. The total value of its imports and exports was then Rs. 1,200,000; the present value is Rs. 165,000,000. Such a rapid increase in population and trade is not uncommon in the United States and other parts of the American continent, or even in Australia, but it would be remarkable in Europe, and is unparalleled in India. It is

supposed to have been the first harbour in the Indian Ocean in which a European navy ever rode, namely, the fleet of Alexander the Great, which was ordered to proceed, in the year 326 B.C., from the Delta of the Indus to that of the Euphrates, under the command of Admiral Nearchus. Upwards of 2000 years after that event it had another distinction, namely, that of being the station from which the first telegraphic inessage was transmitted from India to England.

The general name Karachi includes the town of that name, and also the island of Keamari, with which it is connected by the Napier Mole or Road, the construction of which was conceived and partly accomplished by Sir Charles of that Ilk, the Conqueror and first Governor of the Province of Sind.

The town covers a considerable area, and comprises the old native walled "city," and the comparatively modern barracks, bazaars, and European cantonments. It possesses several handsome buildings, among which may be enumerated the Frere Hall, the Empress Market, the Sind Club, churches of all denominations, barracks, and schools.

The Frere Hall was opened to the public in 1865, and has been erected to the memory of the late Sir Bartle Frere, Bart., Chief Commissioner of Sind during the most important period of the Mutiny, and afterwards Governor of Bombay. He always took a lively interest in Karachi, and to his energy, following that of Napier, is in a great measure due the rapid advance of the town and harbour. His career is too well known to require any comments from me, but en passant, I may mention that Bartle Frere was the first East India Company's cadet who arrived in India by the overland route. This was in 1834. Frere Hall was designed by Lieut.-Colonel St. Clair Wilkins, and its style is Venetian Gothic. It is built of limestone quarried close to Karachi, and is occupied

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