Page:A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts.djvu/15

 in the Campaigns in Mysore, too partial perhaps to my slender talents and ardor for the pursuit, and in 1792, after the Peace of Seringapatam, I was sent a Subaltern from the army in Mysore, by the desire of the late revered Lord Cornwallis, with the small detachment at first employed in the Nizam's dominions for the purpose of acquiring some information of the Geography of these countries, and of the relative boundaries of the several States, then assuming a new form and new limits.

"From 1793 to 1799, it were tedious to relate the difficulties, the accidents and the discouragement that impeded the progress of this design. The slender means allotted from the necessity of a rigid; no doubt just, economy; the doubts and the hindrance ever attendant on new attempts; difficulties arising from the nature of the climate of the country, of the government; from conflicting interests, and passional and prejudices difficult to contend with, and unpleasant to recollect.

"In the year 1796, a general Map of the Nizam's dominions was submitted to Government for the first time, compiled and digested from various materials of various authority described in a Memoir that accompanied; and designed rather as a specimen for future corrections, and shewing what was wanting as much as what was done. It had however the use of bringing the subject into one point of view; further