Vlll PREFACE. 



heretofore were held out as temptations to the study of the 

 classical languages by Europeans — and leaving the completion 

 of the Mahabhdrat to the charity of private subscription, along 

 with the statistical information collected by Buchanan ; the 

 geographical and geological, by Moorcroft, Voysey, and Her- 

 bert ! When he sees all this, and a contribution of 1200 rupees 

 refused for the printing of a Cochin Chinese Dictionary, tendered 

 by a Catholic Bishop, in the distressed state of his Mission, 

 even without demanding any remuneration for the labour of 

 compilation, can he divest himself of the idea that the pre- 

 sence or the absence of a Sir Wm. Jones, a Wilkins, a Cole- 

 brooke and a Wilson have influenced these opposite re- 

 solutions ? The learned world will at any rate rejoice that 

 our Hindustani, Bengali, Marhatti, Tibetan, and Sanscrit Dic- 

 tionaries have passed into permanent existence anterior to the 

 epoch of interdiction ; and that while the Asiatic Society sup- 

 plies, however feebly, the patronage lost elsewhere, India need 

 not be wholly dependent upon France and Germany for its edi- 

 tions of the Sanscrit classics, and for the development of the 

 ancient history and philology of the nations under British rule. 



This is the gloomy side of the annual picture ; but let it not 

 be imagined, that there is no sunshine ; nor that we seek to 

 shade it. 



The government has liberally rewarded and patronized the 

 labours of Mr. Masson, and of Mohan La'l, — it has deputed a 

 scientific mission under charge of Dr. Wallich, into the tea 

 districts of Assam ; it has in like manner deputed Mr. Adam, 

 to follow the steps of Dr. Buchanan, in collecting statistical 

 information principally in connection with the education of the 

 people ; it has employed its engineer officers in a grand sectional 

 survey of a line from Rajmahal to Cutwa, with the view to 

 examine its fitness for a canal to join the Hugli and Ganges : 

 and it still supports on a magnificent scale the grand Trigono- 

 metrical Survey of India. The journal has not indeed been 

 favoured with any report of the progress of these great works, 

 but it is known that the canal survey is now finished : — and 

 that Major Everest has completed the measurement of a second 

 base near Seharanpur. Other official reports, such as surveys 

 of Socotra, of the Maldives, Mr. Gordon's excursions in China 



