Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/14

 PREFACE

a field of research which has known the learned labours of Sir Henry Yule, Mr. J. Talboys Wheeler, the Record Commission, and Mr. H. Beveridge, followed by Dr. Busteed, the Rev. H. B. Hyde, and the late Mr. C. R. Wilson, it might have been thought that there was little room for other workers; yet, where the harvest is so abundant, a simple gleaner may venture to follow in the wake of these stalwart reapers, and bring her modest sheaf to the great storehouse of history.

Such a thought has encouraged me to put forward this little book. My aim has not been to give any account of the great deeds by which the men of old Calcutta laid the foundations of the British Empire in the East, but rather to try and depict the lives they led, their daily cares and amusements, the wives and daughters who lightened their exile, the houses in which they dwelt, the servants who waited on them, the food they ate, the wines they drank, the scenes