EDITOR'S PREFACE, THE manuscript from which this work is derived, presented to us by my father in the month of April, 1863, had lain long unnoticed, and almost forgotten, along with other ornamental and useful drawing-room books, until the chance visit of a neighbour, and a reference equally accidental to Indian affairs, caused it to be produced and referred to. My friend borrowed the book, and in time returned it with genuine expressions of the satisfaction its perusal had afforded him, and thereby caused me to examine and re-read it more carefully than before, and, after some consideration and consultation, to prepare it for publication. I am encouraged in this course not only by the fact that the Overland Route to India is in no sense of the word an Overland Route any longer, but because that intermediate stage on the path of progress, the railway journey, has become a thing of the past, and will, like the canal and omnibus portion of the voyage, soon be outside memory, and live in history only. That this little work can add to Mr. Simms' reputation as a scientific writer cannot be, for it is wholly without scientific pretension, and was, moreover, as the preface of its author shows, undertaken as a pastime; but if the public will be indulgent, and accord to the Overland Route in 1845, only a tenth part of the support and countenance they have so freely given, both in the past as well as in the present time, to "Practical Tunnelling," "Surveying and Levelling," and my father's other works, I shall consider myself fully justified in this undertaking. Under any circumstances, let me trust that all errors, both of omission and commission, may be laid to my charge, and that I may be held entirely responsible for the appendix, in which the concluding portion of the late Mr. F. W. Simms' Indian career is for the first time brought forward, and because his plans, though rejected in his time, have since been adopted, and their value recognised, not only through the public statements of disinterested people, but also by the Press of India, as recently as last year. How seldom is it granted to a man, whose middle life has been one of constant struggle against opposition, one, too, who resigned fair prospects at home in the hope of distinction abroad, to be able to complete in his own time the well-known prophecy of the great mythical hero, "hereafter, perchance, it will please us to dwell on these things." For the notes the editor is also entirely responsible; some of these are the results of a recollection of his own travels over a portion of the ground described in this volume, the sources of others are mentioned as given; whilst recourse has been had to some encyclopædias and other books, too numerous for mention, to "refresh a memory," often much called upon, or to "supply its place." VICTORIA STREET, F. S. |