Xll 
little to excite emulation, and no other instruction than a few 
friendly hints from Sir Archibald Campbell; who, during a short 
residence at Bombay in 1768, encouraged my juvenile pursuits. 
In the original letters I occasionally introduced a few remarks 
and quotations from other travellers to illustrate my own obser- 
vations in India. In arranging them for the press, I have consider- 
ably, but I trust not unnecessarily, enlarged these acquisitions. 
The names of Sir William Jones, Dr. Robertson, Major Rennel, 
and other respectable writers of whose superior talents I have 
now availed myself, would add value and authenticity to a work 
of much greater merit. 
I also acknowledge my obligation to another author of acute 
discrimination and strict veracity, Dr. Fryer, F. R.S. who was ap- 
pointed physician to Bombay, soon after it was ceded to the English, 
on the marriage of Charles the Second with the Infanta Catherine 
of Portugal; and on his return published his letters from India and 
Persia. Dr. Fryers travels corroborate and illustrate many seem- 
ing improbabilities in the manners and customs of the Hindoos; a 
people who then were, and still remain, in the same stale as when 
the Greek historians recorded the invasion of Alexander. I shall 
conclude my own preface in the simple language of that prefixed 
by this intelligent writer to his own publication. 
“ As to the method I have taken in this work, it is unconfined, 
such being the privilege of a traveller; not bounded with the nar- 
row terms of an historian, nor loosely extravagant, like poetical 
fictions; but suited both to time and place, and agreeable to the 
nature of the relation ; which, though it may make some uneven- 
ness in the style, as where the ruggedness of the way interposes, 
