AND NATIVE OPINION IN INDIA. FROM NOTES TAKEN 1870-74 BY JAMES ROUTLEDGE. *LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL 1878. [All rights reserved.] PREFACE. My object in this work is to try to depict some phases of Indian life as they actually are, and to make them as clear as possible to readers who know nothing practically of India. I can honestly affirm that I could with far less labour have made a work of a much more pretentious character than it has cost me to weave together this simple narrative of facts. The Indian Administration Reports alone are a mine of figures, which, with very little trouble, may be adapted to any subject, and used by any writer. No report, however, would have given me the material for the pictures which it has been my aim and wish to present. If the reader is interested with those pictures, I shall rejoice. I shall rejoice still more if I am fortunate enough to contribute anything tending to the solution of the great problems-many of them more social than political-involved in the relations of India to England. |