Twenty Four Plates Illustrative of Hindoo and European Manners in Bengal

Preface DEEPLY sensible as I am of the importance of fidelity of representation, as well as of description in a work like that which I now offer to the notice of the public, I venture to say a few words upon my qualifications for the task I have undertaken, and the claims the Work possesses to the favorable consideration of the under whose inspection it may come.

A native of the country, some peculiarities of whose customs and ceremonies I have attempted to depict.

From earliest childhood, I was a curious and interested spectator of every object and event characteristic of native opinions and manners in Bengal. The festivals and processions, the ceremonials of religion and the practices of ordinary life, found me ever thus early an attentive observer. My great source of amusement, too, after witnessing spectacles of more than ordinary interest, was to trace-rudely, indeed, as may readily he supposed-upon the walls of the garden, a representation of what I had seen, while its impressions where yet vivid on the mind; and thus, so intimately acquainted had 1 become with the style and character of native manners, whether exhibited in the scenes of public display, or in the less exposed habits of domestic life, that in after years, my recollections alone would have enabled me to sketch the various subjects supplied in such profusion by the people which surrounded me. I did not, however, depend upon the knowledge thus acquired when I commenced the series of representations of which my work is composed. Every Plate is executed from sketches after nature, which I made chiefly during my pedestrian excursions in the interior of the country, on the banks of the Ganges, where the restraints which confine respectable Europeans to the Palkee are laid aside, and they can enjoy in uninterrupted freedom the contemplation of the various scenes presented by the country, and its inhabitants to their view.

Under such circumstances were the materials procured from which this Work has been completed. It is highly gratifying to me to be able to adduce in favor of its fidelity such testimonies as those contained in the Letters subjoined to this Preface, from the HONORARY SECRETARY to the ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, and the RAJAH RAMMOHU Roy, whose opinions of the Work must carry great weight, when the undeniable capacity of both those gentlemen to form an accurate judgment on its merits, from their personal acquaintance with the inhabitants of India is considered.

I trust, therefore, that I may be pardoned for expressing my confidence, in laying this Work before the public, that it will be found to merit the approbation and patronage, not only of those who feel an interest in the subjects which it represents, from their awakening reminiscences of what they themselves have seen in other years, but, also, of those who are only acquainted with the scenes of the Eastern World through the medium of such sources as the present; arid must, therefore, be actually anxious to meet with representations of them, which may be fully relied on for their accuracy and truth.

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