Produced by Philip H Hitchcock GENERAL SIR W. H SLEEMAN. K.C.B. RAMBLES AND RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN OFFICIAL BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W. H. SLEEMAN, K.C.B. REVISED ANNOTATED EDITION BY VINCENT A. SMITH M.A. (DUBL. ET OXON.), M.R.A.S., F.R.N.S., LATE OF THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE, AUTHOR OF 'THE EARLY HISTORY OF INDIA' 'A HISTORY OF FINE ART IN INDIA AND CEYLON'. ETC. HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY 1915 Transcriber's Note In producing this e-text the numerous notes have been moved to the end of their respective chapters and renumbered. The printed 'Additions and Corrections' have been included in the relevant text. In the printed edition the spelling of certain words is not always consistent. This is especially true of the use of diacritical marks on certain words, even within a single page. This e-text attempts to reproduce the spellings exactly as used in the printed edition. The use of italics is shown as _italics_. AUTHOR'S DEDICATION MY DEAR SISTER, Were any one to ask your countrymen in India what has been their greatest source of pleasure while there, perhaps nine in ten would say, the letters which they receive from their sisters at home. These, of all things, perhaps, tend most to link our affections with home by filling the landscapes, so dear to our recollections, with ever varying groups of the family circles, among whom our infancy and our boyhood have been passed; and among whom we still hope to spend the winter of our days. They have a very happy facility in making us familiar with the new additions made from time to time to the _dramatis personae_ of these scenes after we quit them, in the character of husbands, wives, children, or friends; and, while thus contributing so much to our happiness, they no doubt tend to make us better citizens of the world, and servants of government, than we should otherwise be, for, in our 'struggles through life in India', we have all, more or less, an eye to the approbation of those circles which our kind sisters represent--who may, therefore, be considered in the exalted light of a valuable species of _unpaid magistracy_ to the Government of India.