ORIGINAL PREFACE.
serve to dissipate the gorgeous illusions which are commonly entertained regarding the dynasties which have passed, and show him that, notwithstanding a civil policy and an ungenial climate, which forbid our making this country a permanent home, and deriving personal gratification or profit from its advancement, notwithstanding the many defects necessarily inherent in a system of foreign administration, in which language, colour, religion, customs, and laws preclude all natural sympathy between sovereign and subject, we have already, within the half-century of our dominion, done more for the substantial benefit of the people, than our predecessors, in the country of their own adoption, were able to accomplish in more than ten times that period;[1] and, drawing auguries from the past, he will derive hope for the future, that, inspired by the success which has hitherto attended our endeavours, we shall follow them up by continuous efforts to fulfil our high destiny as the rulers of India.
- ↑ I speak only with reference to my own Presidency, the North-Western Provinces. Bengal is said to be a quarter of a century behind it in every symptom of improvement, except mere English education. To the North-Western Provinces, at least cannot be applied the taunt, that we have done nothing, compared with the Muhammadan Emperors, with respect to roads, bridges, and canals. Even here, in the very seat of their supremacy, we have hundreds of good district roads where one never existed before, besides the 400 miles of trunk-road, which is better than any mail-road of similar extent in Europe, and to which the Emperors never had anything in the remotest degree to be compared. The bridge of Jaunpúr is the only one that can enter into competition with our bridge over the Hindun, and would suffer greatly by the comparison, to say nothing of those over the Júa, the Khanaut, and the Kálí-nadí. In canals we have been fifty times more effective. Instead of wasting our supply of water on the frivolities of fountains, we have fertilized whole provinces, which had been barren from time immemorial, and this even on the lines of which much was marked out by themselves, leaving out of consideration the magnificent works in progress in the Doáb and Rohilkhand. The scientific survey alone of the North-Western Provinces is sufficient to proclaim our superiority; in which every field throughout an area of 52,000 square miles is mapped, and every man's possession recorded. It altogether eclipses the boasted measurement of Akbar, and is as magnificent a monument of civilization as any country in the world can produce. Finally, be it remembered that six centuries more have to elapse before any thing like a comparison can be fairly instituted. It is to be hoped we shall not be idle during that long period.
