Page:Imperial India — An Artist's Journals.djvu/21

Rh painting before I had completed my two years' residence at Haileybury, my studies for that service were of great use to me. I found, too, on my arrival in the East, my contemporaries of Haileybury already high up in the service, while the honour of the old Indian name of Prinsep was sustained by two brothers and several near relations.

When, therefore, it was settled that I was to go to India, I was unexpectedly afforded an opportunity for realizing a hope that I had long cherished. But I was familiar enough with things Indian to be aware of the vastness of the undertaking. Lord Lytton's idea (conveyed in a telegram), "that I should be able to make all the necessary memoranda during the week the Assemblage was to last," was, I knew well, a delusion. I expected to have much travelling to perform, to have to track the rajah to his lair, and there "fix" him. But how many rajahs were to be "fixed" I did not know. I could form little idea of the distances I had to travel, or of the time required to cover those distances. In this my father could not help me, as in his time to travel merely from Calcutta to Delhi occupied two months! I allowed, however, six months for my travels. The sequel will show that I was more than double that time in India.

Meanwhile I determined to keep a journal, and it is this journal that I now submit with all humility to the public. I found the undertaking in which I had embarked was so much more vast than I anticipated, that I had to deny myself any deviations from the line of journey I was forced to take. The reader will therefore find no thrilling adventures of the chase, and but few hairbreadth 'scapes by flood and field. Where, however, I have come across any information about the peoples and countries in which I was sojourning, I have ventured to borrow from books such tales and descriptions as I thought would interest the public. Especially am I indebted to Tod's "Rajasthan" and Pinkerton's "Voyages." The first, like most English books on India, is so bulky as to frighten the ordinary reader. It is written in the redundant style of the first part of this century, and contains many repetitions and much confusion. It is, how-