CAL SIX MONTHS IN INDIA. BY MARY CARPENTER, AUTHOR OF OUR CONVICTS,' 'LAST DAYS OF RAMMOHUN ROY,' ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. ΤΟ The Honoured Memory OF THE RAJAH RAMMOHUN ROY, THE GREAT REFORMER OF INDIA, WHO FIRST EXCITED IN THE AUTHOR'S MIND A DESIRE TO BENEFIT HIS COUNTRY, These Volumes ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 512236 PREFACE. IT WAS NOT MY INTENTION, when I went to India, to write an account of my travels: my visit was purely one of friendly sympathy. Circumstances recorded in the following narrative, led me to modify my original intention, and greatly extended my sphere of observation. The light afforded me by my past experience, as well as the sympathy in my work of the Supreme Government and that of each Presidency, and the friendly confidence of the native inhabitants, enabled me, in my brief visit, to see and learn much which does not usually come under the notice of travellers. Everything, invested with the charm of novelty, produced a very vivid impression on my mind; and though I had no time while in the country to record in writing many of these impressions, yet I had peculiar opportunities of comparing them with those of official gentlemen, and of experienced residents in the country, and thus of correcting or strengthening them. On my return to England, it appeared to those who are most desirous to benefit India, that an important means of drawing attention to that great country |