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continue to govern the British dominion in India, and complete the work that already hath affumed fo fair an afpect. The facrifice is great, but the reward is ftill greater; it will reach beyond the fovereign's bounty, or the peoples praise.

I have the Honour to be,

With the most profound respect,

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PREFACE.

BOOKS of Voyages and Travels having been ever

held in estimation, and indulgently received, I am the less fearful of submitting the following volume to the notice of the public. A knowledge of the manners of different nations qualifies domeftic prejudice, and enlightens the mind; but the subjects of Britain derive from it a fingular benefit; they see through a comparison that communicates a fond pleasure to the heart, the unrivaled excellency of their laws, conftitution and government; they see these rare gifts brightly reflected on their national character, which still avowedly maintains its pre-eminence amongst the nations of the European world. Were a man to form a judgment of the bias of VOL. I.

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his own genius and difpofition, (on the merits of which he is, perhaps the least qualified to decide, (I would unrefervedly fay, that in the course of my journey, I felt no impulse of partiality for any fect or body of men. It is of ferious concern to letters, that many a man of genius and science has fixed a difcredit on his works, by a wilful adherence to fome favourite fyftem, which alluring to its standard a various train of affections, and ideas, he becomes involuntarily incited to facrifice to it the principles of truth and reason.

TRAVELLERS ftand accused, even, on proverbial authority, of adopting a figurative and loose style of description; and as I have been thrown into tracks, removed from the eye of European obfervation, I am prompted to earnestly folicit the confidence of the public in behalf of this work, and to fay, that however vitiated by the errors of judgment, it has no tendency to difcolour or mifrepresent truth. The curfory differtation on the former and prefent ftate of Bengal, may have fome claim to favour, from the confideration that I vifited that province in the description of a passenger;

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though but a small portion of local knowledge might have been acquired, essential advantages arose from this temporary refidence.

GUIDED by no views of interest, nor impressed by any frown of power, I was enabled to examine the objects that came before me through a dispaffionate medium.

THE letter on the mythology of the Hindoos, some copies of which were published in 1785, has been corrected fince my return to India; but from the various intricacy of the subject, I am apprehensive it may yet contain errors and apparent inconfiftencies. Investigations of the religious ceremonies and customs of the Hindoos, written in the Carnatic, and in the Punjab, would in many examples widely differ; yet the Hindoo religion, in all parts of India, ftand on a common bafis; nor does the vast superstructure, when the view is infpected with attention, effentially differ in its compartments. The oftenfible diffimilarity arises, perhaps from the manners of the fame people, varying in Northern and Southern regions. A native of the lower Carnatic is mild,

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temperate, and generally timid; he performs the ordinances of his religion with a zealous and ferupulous! attention; and the bramin of that country, with many of the other fects, is confined ftrictly to the ufe of vegetable diet. How ftrong the contraft appears in the inhabitant of the Punjab; thofe even of domestic and laborious profeffions, are brave, daring, and often cruel. Bramins are the ufual foldiers of the country, many of whom cat flesh meat; and they never leave their home, even when not employed in military fervice, without weapons of offence. The merchants and mechanicks, when they go but a few miles abroad, are all strongly armed; and in fome of the Northern provinces, particularly in Bundilcund, the husbandmen carry a fpear. into the field they are cultivating. This difference of difpofition has produced oppofite manners, in the fame tribes of people, as well as oppofite customs, which if not attentively inveftigated, would afford a fpecious belief, that the inhabitants of the North and South of India were not connected by any national relation.

I HAVE to exprefs with pleasure, great obligations to

Colonel

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