"حياة ومراسلات اللواء السير جون مالكوم، قائد فرسان وسام الطُهر، المبعوث السابق إلى بلاد فارس وحاكم بومباي؛ من رسائل ومذكرات غير منشورة. في مجلّدين. المجلد II." [‎٥‎٤‎٣] (٦٥٤/٥٦٠)

•* v<.*
SOJOUEN AT THE HILLS.
543
to stay," he wrote to the Duke of Wellington, " will be
devoted to the winding up of my government, and I
shall leave this in a steam-vessel about the end of the
year, and see you, I hope, in February, in as good, if not
better, health than when I left you." " I remain here
four days," he wrote from Bombay, on the 20th of April,
"to give my gmndfete on the King's birthday, and then
to the hills, which I shall reach in little more than
twenty-five hours, and change the thermometer twenty-
five degrees. My labor continues incessant, and will to
the last day of my stay."*
In the fine cool climate of the Mahabuleshwur hills
Malcolm prosecuted his work in high health, and in good
spirits engendered by the thought of his approaching
return to England, f The new Commander-in-Chief,
Sir Sydney Beckwith; the Chief Secretary; and nearly
the whole of the Staff, were there also; so both in his
public and his private relations he was well supported by
his friends. In the natural charms of the place itself
there was sufficient to exhilarate a man of Malcolm's
impressible nature. "I must," he wrote to Sir Walter
Scott, on the 15th of May, "if not born an enthusiast,
be rendered one by my present position. I write by the
light of a window through which, from an elevation of
* In this letter, to his banker, Sir
John Lubbock, Malcolm says; " If I
paid one per cent, of the attention to
my private concerns that I have to the
public, what a rich fellow I should have
been!"
f How eagerly he looked forward
to his approaching emancipation,
may be gathered from the following
passage in a letter written a few
Bionths before: " You will be over
whelmed with accounts from the
muddy shores of the Hooghly. Good
God! what would I not have given for
two years of open, direct, and uncom
promising rule in that quarter. But
you have denied me even the open
compliment of a provisional appoint
ment. I should, however, thank you,
for it has extinguished every ember of
ambition to remain in public employ;
and I look to nothing but the enjoy
ment, for a few remaining years, of my
family and my country. I literally
count every day that passes of my short
period of stay in India; and yet my
anxiety to place this Government upon
a proper footing makes every day a
fight with one person or another; for
men cannot bear the reform of rooted
usages, even when they are indispen
sable."— {November 12, 1829.]