Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/15

VI out, there was no justification for re-writing it and there were some serious reasons for not doing so. The Second Volume had dealt with the religious life of the people; the more abundant data which were afterwards forthcoming had only confirmed in all particulars the account that I had given. Besides, in the First Volume, there was only the first chapter which would be less useful than one written in 1899, since that latter could so deal with the general political situation as to lay more clearly before the reader the alteration in the state of affairs since 1891. Much of what had then been important, had come to lose its practical significance,—new factors and persons had brought their influences to bear. Any one writing a new introductory chapter with his eye on the altered situation would have broken, more or less, the thread of connection which ran through the component portions of my work. Moreover the state of affairs in 1891–92 long remained unchanged, while in 1899 the march of events was so rapid that the situation might almost be said to be changing from day to day. Last of all, the undertaking might have been seriously delayed owing to the fact that the translator and the author were separated—one in the Straits Settlements, the other in Netherlands India—and that both, wrapped up in official duties, would already find it as much as they could do to get through their self-appointed task, especially as the English edition would have to be printed in Europe.

All these considerations led up to the decision that the text should be left substantially unaltered, and that only occasionally would some improvements and fuller explanations be included in it, that isolated additions to the text regarding individuals mentioned in it, should be put in brackets after the names referred to, and, finally, that in an introductory article as much should be said regarding the course of recent events in Acheh as would suffice to give the reader some idea of their significance. This last seemed specially needful in an edition destined for readers outside Holland as well as in it, since foreigners had constructed for themselves a legend of the Acheh War which, though completely refuted by Dutch writings, continues still, outside Holland, to be accepted as history. Speaking generally, the most absurd errors are accepted in Europe for the truth regarding events that concern the minor states; even in Germany, the land of learning, savants take each other more seriously to task over an error in an edition of a Pushtu text or in an essay on the ethnography of Corea