by Hervey H. Publication date 1901 (rare) PREFACE Thirty-five years of an adult life passed in India, for the most part in a branch of the Government Service which has thrown me into contact with a heterogeneous people, not only in cities and towns where the Western exotic IS a familiar figure, but also in remote villages and jungles where the sahib is well-nigh un- known, have given me many opportunities of becoming familiar with the character and habits of the natives by ingratiating myself with them, conversing with them in their own tongues, and assimilating myself with their inner life. I can now, therefore, with confidence call upon my store of reminiscences, and frame these chapters in the full hope that they will prove agreeable and perhaps instnictive reading ♦to those who are interested in that “Land of, Regrets," that home of “The Pagoda Tree,” cofiimonly called “ India ” H. J. A. HERVEY.