PREFACE.
The first two chapters of this book were published more than a year ago in the Army and Navy Magazine, and are reprinted with the kind permission of the proprietors, Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co. The other chapters were written about the same time, as articles for the same Magazine, but not being sufficiently within the scope of a military and naval periodical, it was resolved to produce them in the present form. The author, in the course of a long career in the Bengal Civil Service, has held nearly all the appointments which he has attempted to describe in connection with that service, and he had many opportunities of becoming acquainted with all the mechanism of Indian government, as seen from Calcutta and the Lower Provinces of Bengal. In his attempt to give a sketch of social life in India, it must be remembered that he is writing chiefly of the Lower Provinces of Bengal. He has endeavoured to avoid anything which might give personal offence, and he would gladly adopt as his motto, “Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?” It is hoped that this book may afford some entertainment to those who have been in India, and that it may be of use and interest to those young men who are thinking of devoting themselves to a professional career in India. It only remains to observe that these papers were written before the recent agitation in connection with the Ilbert Bill, but it has not been found necessary to alter anything that had been written as regards either the English residents or the native community.