1838.3 



Memoir on the Indian Survey s» 



435 



Such was the state of our acquaintance with India down to the break- 

 ing out of the second war in Mysore in 17^9} established for the most 

 part on the valuable deductions of Major Rennell and Danville, whose 

 labours were eventually incorporated with a mass of native informa- 

 tion of indifferent character in the large map of Colonel Charles Rey- 

 nolds. And here it may be well to pause for a while, and take a general 

 review of the state of geography in India as compared with that of our 

 own country, where many of us would willingly believe some much 

 more marked advance had been made to an accurate acquaintance with 

 the position and superficial extent of the British territories, than in less 

 civilized lands; and that a maritime nation at least, such as England, 

 had been long in possession of the most accurate charts of its own 

 shores, which should enable its shipping, in the event of anticipated 

 peril or stress of weather, to avail themselves of every advantage pre- 

 sented by peculiar natural localities. 



In countries where the inhabitants are comparatively backward 

 in point of civilization, where there are but few large towns, where 

 commerce is not the primary pursuit, and there are hardly any- 

 great roads, the delineation oi the great features which they present has 

 usually been deferred till they have become the theatre of war, and 

 even then are supposed for all ordinary purposes sufficiently complete 

 by the collation of routes, corrected here and there by observations for 

 latitude and longitude. It is argued that the difficulties to be sur- 

 mounted, and the advantages to be expected, could never be commen- 

 surate with each other, nor would the expense of money and life thus 

 bestowed be in any adequate degree compensated by the information 

 acquired. Where so much is necessarily left to imagination, it is in- 

 conceivable how little dependence is to be placed on the generality of 

 such compilations, how much interpolation and repetition also of rivers 

 and towns, and other principal objects, are incident to the mere incon- 

 sistencies of orthography. My particular attention was drawn to the 

 latter circumstance, on going over the tract of country on the western 

 coast of India, and comparing the actual survey with that compiled by 

 Colonel Charles Reynolds in 1/98. 



Moreover, as in route surveys much is left to the eye, to the judgment 

 of the observer in estimating distances, as well as to his candour in 

 drawing inferences from the various descriptions of information pre- 

 sented to him, it very rarely happens that any two practitioners, and 

 they are usually self-taught amateurs, arrive at the same conclusions. 

 The very same provinces, therefore, which purport to have been laid 

 down from the most accurate observations of such persons have occa- 



