that useful compilation the freest access to the manuscripts of Doctor Buchanan, and it must be confessed that much of the information they contain has been condensed into the body of that work, throughout the pages of which continual references will be seen to the Buchanan manuscripts.
The readers of the Journal of the Asiatic Society are aware of the manner in which the arrangement for their publication in the present form originated. Captain J. D. Herbert, Editor of the Gleanings in Science, being anxious to secure to his subscribers a privilege which should render the support of his journal less burdensome to the few and scattered cultivators of scientific knowledge in India, negociated with the Government for permission to circulate the work free of postage on condition of devoting monthly a certain number of pages (stipulated at not less than eight) to the publication “of valuable official documents, having reference to public utility.” The privilege was accorded by the Government; and the first volume of the reports, being the statistic account of Dinájpur, was placed in his hands, by Mr. G. Swinton, Chief Secretary to Government, who had been warmly interested in the promotion of the scheme. The Editor of the Gleanings, in fulfilling the conditions of his agreement, wisely determined to print the documents in a separate form, rather than incorporate detached portions of them as separate articles in the body of his journal. “On a full consideration of the subject,” he says, in his notice to Subscribers, dated April, 1832, “we deemed the latter course the preferable one; particularly, considering the very full information contained in these journals, and that it related to the least known districts, as well as the great pains taken in the arrangement of all the particulars. It was thought that to break down and throw into detached pieces a work which the author had taken so much trouble to systematize, would be to lose one of the principal features of excellence which distinguish these records.”
It has necessarily occupied many months to complete the present volume, under such circumstances; but the delay will not have caused much inconvenience, if the subscribers to the Gleanings and the Journal have attended to the injunction, frequently repeated, that the scattered sheets should be reserved with care to be put together in the form of a separate volume.
It will be remarked, that many plates are referred to in the text: the drawings alluded to, as has already been stated, are in possession of the Honorable Court of Directors. It was thought better to preserve the references as they stood in the manuscript, in case the Honorable Court
