182 FAREWELL BANQUET 



1908. 



When I landed in India at the close of the year 

 1908 I was appalled by the task which lay before 

 me. It was as complex as it was new to me. 

 I found myself in a country with which I was 

 totally unacquainted. My fellow-countrymen 

 here were as much strangers to me as were the 

 Indians, and I was brought in contact with a race 

 as different from my own as it is possible for 

 two races to be who spring from one common 

 the Aryan origin. The only thing which met me 

 with which I had ever before been familiar was a 

 large deficit in the Budget. 



I asked myself what hope could I entertain of 

 succeeding in such a task a task not indeed self- 

 imposed, but undertaken with diffidence and only 

 after having twice declined the proffered honour. 



I asked myself the question, " Can I hope to 

 succeed ?" and I answered myself, " It is my duty 

 to try," and I was supported by the conviction 

 that if I did my very best I should at least be 

 given credit for an earnest endeavour to acquit 

 myself without discredit and possibly with ad- 

 vantage to those whom I had come to serve. 



I have had a very hard life at Home and abroad, 

 and my five years in India have been full of heavy 

 work, of worry and of anxiety, but I have received 

 and am taking away a priceless reward the 

 esteem and affection of all those Indians with 

 whom I have been brought in contact. 



From the first you all gave me a fair chance; 

 from the first you gave me encouragement and 

 support. No one can, I think, charge me with 

 having either flattered you or feared you. I said 

 to myself, " I shall have to hold my own, to utter 

 unpalatable truths, to add to Indian burdens and 



