PREFACE.
EARLY in the year 1866, Dr. J. Fayrer, o. s. 1., submitted to the Asiatic «Society of Bengal a proposal for a great Ethnological Congress in Calcutta, which was to bring together in one exhibition typical examples of the races of the Old World, to be made the subject of scientific study when so collected.’
I“ The Council of the Society were unanimous in regarding the proposition as one highly calculated to advance the science of ethnology, and in submitting it to the Government of India warmly advocated its adoption, suggesting that it would form an appropriate adjunct to the general industrial exhibition which it Was then in- tended to hold in 1869—70.
The scheme was a grand one, and there is no capital in the world possessing greater facilities for its successful accomplishment than Calcutta.
But difliculties presented themselves. It was of importance that the wild tribes of India should be fully represented. - Yet it is sometimes no easy matter to induce those strange shy creatures to visit even the stations nearest to them, and to induce them to proceed to a remote and unknown country for a purpose they could not be made to comprehend, would in many cases have been utterly impracticable. It was also pointed out that such people were liable to sufl’er in health from change of clhnate'. The Commissioner of Aszim stated his conviction that twenty typical specimens of the hill tribes of his province could not be conveyed to Calcutta and back at any time of the year without casualties that the greatest enthusiast for anthropological research would shrink from encountering; and he add.ed-—“ if speci- mens of the more independqu tribes fell sick and died in Calcutta or on the journey, it might lead to inconvenientlioiitical complications.” .
For these and other. reasons the scheme was allowed to drop. But in the mean- time the- Government of Bengal and the Supreme Government had, in compliance with the request of the Society, called. on all local authorities to furnish complete and accurate lists of various races found within their respective jurisdictions; and w ' Proceeding: of the mastitis—thew of Bengal tier April;ll:866.
