PREFACE.
In 1807, the Directors of the East India Company having recommended that a full and accurate Statistical Survey of the territories under the immediate authority of the Presidency of Fort William should be executed, for the purpose of obtaining such information on the real state of the country as might be productive of future improvement and advantage, the Governor General Lord Minto resolved, that Dr. Francis Buchanan, whose abilities and experience were justly considered by the court to qualify him in a peculiar degree for such an investigation, should be appointed to this duty.
The extent and variety of the objects to which his attention was to be directed, will be understood from the following extract from the instructions drawn up by the Secretary to Government for his guidance:
“Your inquiries are to extend throughout the whole of the territories subject to the immediate authority of the Presidency of Fort William.
“The Governor General in Council is of opinion, that these inquiries should commence in the district of Rungpúr, and that from thence you should proceed to the westward through each district on the north side of the Ganges, until you reach the western boundary of the Honorable Company’s provinces. You will then proceed towards the south and east, until you have examined all the districts on the south side of the great river, and afterwards proceed to Dacca, and the other districts towards the eastern frontier.
“It is also desirable, that you should extend your inquiries to the adjacent countries, and to those petty states with which the British Government has no regular intercourse. In performing this duty, however, you are prohibited from quitting the Company’s territories, and are directed to confine your inquiries to consulting such of the natives of those countries as you may meet with, or natives of the British territories who have visited the countries in question.
“Your inquiries should be particularly directed to the following subjects, which you are to examine with as much accuracy as local circumstances will admit.
“I. A Topographical account of each district, including the extent, soil, plains, mountains, rivers, harbours, towns, and subdivisions; to-
