TO THE CIVIL AND MILITARY SERVICES OF BRITISH INDIA, THIS WORK IS DEDICATED, WITH GRATEFUL RESPECT AND CORDIAL GOOD WISHES, BY THEIR OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. INTRODUCTION. THE purpose of this little volume, which I have now the honour to submit to the public, is to combine, in a compact and convenient form, all the information necessary to the prosecution of the journey Overland to India and vice versa. Scarcely a day passes that I am not asked, either personally or by letter, to guide some intending traveller in his arrangements for the trip, and even to advise him as to the preferable routes, the expense, the manner of the voyage, &c. Ignorance on all these points induces inapposite and irrelevant questions; and it is not unusual to find, at the end of correspondence or a prolonged interview, that the querist is as far from the possession of the knowledge he desired to acquire as he was when he first preferred his application. No clear and satisfactory information can possibly be obtained by a desultory conversation or fragmentary epistles; hence the value of a systematic and comprehensive arrangement of all the facts and suggestions pertaining to the subject. |