Page:A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of the District, or Zila, of Dinajpur.djvu/6

vi sales, and the regulations respecting their markets. Should it appear to you that any new art or manufacture might be introduced with advantage into any district, you are to point out in what manner you think it may be accomplished.

“VII. Commerce; the quantity of goods exported and imported in each district; the manner of conducting sales, especially at fairs and markets; the regulation of money, weights, and measures; the nature of the conveyance of goods by land and water, and the means by which this may be facilitated, especially, by making or repairing roads.

“In addition to the foregoing objects of inquiry, you will take every opportunity of forwarding to the Company’s Botanical Garden at this presidency, whatever useful or rare and curious plants and seeds you may be enabled to acquire in the progress of your researches, with such observations as may be necessary for their culture.”

In pursuance with these instructions, Dr. Buchanan was occupied, during the years 1807, 8, 9, 10, and 11 in a minute survey of the districts of Dinájpur, Rangpur, Púraniya, Bhagelpúr, Behár, and the city of Patna, Sháhabád, and Gorakhpur. Upon each of these districts he submitted a voluminous report, accompanied with statistical tables, maps, and drawings, and where an opportunity was afforded him of collecting it, with collateral information illustrative of the people, or of the geography and natural history, of the neighbouring countries; thus the report on Púraniya embraces an account of Nipal, and of the Sikkim country; the report on Bhagulpúr contains vocabularies of the languages spoken by the hill tribes of that district, compared with the Hindí; and that of Behar exhibits a similar vocabulary of the Dhangar and Bengalí dialects.

The original records, occupying twenty-five folio volumes in manuscript, were transmitted by the Indian Government to the Honorable Court of Directors; a copy of the whole having been previously made, and deposited in the office of the Chief Secretary at Calcutta. Duplicates of the drawings and maps, however, were unfortunately not preserved with the rest, probably from the difficulty at that time of getting them executed in India.

It is matter of surprise and regret, that these valuable documents were not given to the public when stamped with the interest of originality and immediate applicability to the actual circumstances of the districts, and when they would have proved of great utility to the public officers of Government. Although, however, no immediate steps were taken for their publication in an entire form, we learn from the preface to Hamilton’s Hindustan, that the Honorable Court allowed the author of