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under the impulse thus given, some valuable papers from different parts of India were received.
Before the design of a Congress was abandoned, I had been asked to edit the ethnological information submitted in compliance with this requisition by the Commissioners of Divisions and Provinces under the Bengal Government; and in undertaking the duty, my intention was to draw up a descriptive catalogue which might prove a useful guide to the ethnological exhibition; for had the scheme been carried out, the compilation of a more elaborate descriptive work on the subject would have been best left to the scientific visitors of the Congress. However, on examining the papers made over to me, I found no material sufficient even for a catalogue: in truth, there was nothing to edit.
It was then suggested that I should draw up an account of the tribes in Bengal from all available sources of information, and this proposition I have endeavoured to carry out. It is right, however, to state in apology for the selection made of a compiler, and for my acceptance of such a duty, that I am conscious I was applied to solely because it was known that I had spent the greater portion of a long service in Asim and Chútiá Nágpúr, the most interesting fields of ethnological research in all Bengal; and though without any pretension to scientific knowledge of the subject, without practice as an author, or experience as a compiler, I have probably had more opportunities of observing various races and tribes, especially those usually called Aborigines, than have been conceded to any other officer now in the service.
The Asiatic Socieiy of Bengal did me the honor to approve of the proposal, and kindly offered to give me all the assistance in their power. On the 3rd October, 1866, the Council tendered their services to Government to superintend the printing of the work, and the Government in reply thankfully accepted the offer.
The first step was to bring together all the materials available; and in this I was cordially aided by Dr. J. Anderson, then Honorary Secretary of the Asiatic Society, and subsequently by Dr. F. Stoliczka, who succeeded him in that office. Any publications on the subject in the library of the Bengal Secretariat were also placed at my disposal by the Honorable Ashley Eden, who was the first to propose my being employed on the work, and who interested himself generally in the undertaking.
When the project of a collection of the tribes in Calcutta had been reluctantly abandoned, it occurred to all who were interested in the matter that any descriptive work of the kind proposed should be abundantly illustrated.
For this purpose a few of a series of photographs taken for the London Exhibition of 1862 were available; and Dr. B. Simpson, who had contributed them, received a commission to the valley of the Bráhmaputra to add to the collection from that most prolific of ethnological fields. The majority of the illustrations which are now given have been copied from the beautiful photographs taken by Dr. Simpson, one of the most successful of Indian photographers, and he has kindly
