PREFACE.

This book tries to present, in a compact form, an account ofIndia and her peoples. The materials on which it is basedare condensed from my larger works. In 1869 the Govern-ment of India directed me to execute a Statistical Survey ofits dominions,—a vast enterprise, whose published recordsmake 128 volumes, aggregating 60,000 printed pages. Thescale of the operations, although by no means too elaboratefor the administrative purposes for which they were designed,necessarily placed their results beyond the reach of the generalpublic. The 128 volumes of The Statistical Survey were there-fore reduced by me to a more compendious form as the fourteenvolumes of The Imperial Gazetteer of India. In the presentbook I endeavour to distil into one volume the essence of thewhole.

I have elsewhere explained the mechanism by which theStatistical Survey was conducted in each of the Districts orterritorial units, now 250 in number, of British India. 1 Withoutthe help of a multitude of fellow-workers, the local materialscould never have been collected. In again acknowledging myindebtedness to my brethren of the Civil Service in India , Iwish also to specially commemorate the obligations which Iowe to two friends at home. Mr. J. S. Cotton , late Fellowof Queen’s College , Oxford , and Mr. Morse Stephens , B.A.(Balliol ), Lecturer on Indian History at the University of1 See Preface to Volume I. of The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 2nd ed.