Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official | Page 3

Remedy
CHAPTER 70
Rent-free Tenures--Right of Government to Resume such Grants
CHAPTER 71
The Station of Meerut--'Atâlîs' who Dance and Sing gratuitously for the
Benefit of the Poor
CHAPTER 72

Subdivisions of Lands--Want of Gradations of Rank--Taxes
CHAPTER 73
Meerut-Anglo-Indian Society
CHAPTER 74
Pilgrims of India
CHAPTER 75
The Bêgam Sumroo
CHAPTER 76
ON THE SPIRIT OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE IN THE NATIVE
ARMY OF INDIA Abolition of Corporal Punishment--Increase of Pay
with Length of Service--Promotion by Seniority
CHAPTER 77
Invalid Establishment
Appendix: Thuggee and the part taken in its Suppression by General
Sir W. H. Sleeman, K.C.B., by Captain J. L. Sleeman Supplementary
Note by the Editor Additions and Corrections
INDEX
Notes:
1. A blunder for 'Sweepers' and 'Washermen'
2. Chapters 37 to 46, inclusive, are not reprinted in this edition.
3. A mistake. See post, Chapter 52, note 1.

EDITOR'S PREFACE (1893)[1]
The Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, always a costly
book, has been scarce and difficult to procure for many years past.
Among the crowd of books descriptive of Indian scenery, manners, and
customs, the sterling merits of Sir William Sleeman's work have
secured it pre-eminence, and kept it in constant demand,
notwithstanding the lapse of nearly fifty years since its publication. The
high reputation of this work does not rest upon its strictly literary
qualities. The author was a busy man, immersed all his life in the
practical affairs of administration, and too full of his subject to be
careful of strict correctness of style or minute accuracy of expression.
Yet, so great is the intrinsic value of his observations, and so attractive
are the sincerity and sympathy with which he discusses a vast range of
topics, that the reader refuses to be offended by slight formal defects in
expression or arrangement, and willingly yields to the charm of the
author's genial and unstudied conversation.
It would be difficult to name any other book so full of instruction for
the young Anglo-Indian administrator. When this work was published
in 1844 the author had had thirty-five years' varied experience of Indian
life, and had accumulated and assimilated an immense store of
knowledge concerning the history, manners, and modes of thought of
the complex population of India. He thoroughly understood the
peculiarities of the various native races, and the characteristics which
distinguish them from the nations of Europe; while his sympathetic
insight into Indian life had not orientalized him, nor had it ever for one
moment caused him to forget his position and heritage as an
Englishman. This attitude of sane and discriminating sympathy is the
right attitude for the Englishman in India.
To enumerate the topics on which wise and profitable observations will
be found in this book would be superfluous. The wine is good, and
needs no bush. So much may be said that the book is one to interest that
nondescript person, the general reader in Europe or America, as well as
the Anglo-Indian official. Besides good advice and sound teaching on

matters of policy and administration, it contains many charming,
though inartificial, descriptions of scenery and customs, many
ingenious speculations, and some capital stories. The ethnologist, the
antiquary, the geologist, the soldier, and the missionary will all find in
it something to suit their several tastes.
In this edition the numerous misprints of the original edition have been
all, and, for the most part, silently corrected. The extremely erratic
punctuation has been freely modified, and the spelling of Indian words
and names has been systematized. Two paragraphs, misplaced in the
original edition at the end of Chapter 48 of Volume I, have been
removed, and inserted in their proper place at the end of Chapter 47;
and the supplementary notes printed at the end of the second volume of
the original edition have been brought up to the positions which they
were intended to occupy. Chapters 37 to 46 of the first volume,
describing the contest for empire between the sons of Shâh Jahân, are
in substance only a free version of Bernier's work entitled, The Late
Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogol. These chapters have not
been reprinted because the history of that revolution can now be read
much more satisfactorily in Mr. Constable's edition of Bernier's Travels.
Except as above stated, the text of the present edition of the Rambles
and Recollections is a faithful reprint of the Author's text.
In the spelling of names and other words of Oriental languages the
Editor has 'endeavoured to strike a mean between popular usage and
academic precision, preferring to incur the charge of looseness to that
of pedantry'. Diacritical marks intended to distinguish between the
various sibilants, dentals, nasals, and so forth, of the Arabic and
Sanskrit alphabets, have been purposely omitted. Long vowels are
marked by the sign ^. Except in a few