marked by the sign ^.  Except in a few familiar words, such as Nerbudda and Hindoo, which are spelled in the traditional manner, vowels are to be pronounced as in Italian, or as in the following English examples, namely:  a, as in ‘call’; e, or e, as the medial vowel in ‘cake’; i, as in ‘kill’; i, as the medial vowels in ‘keel’; u, as in ‘full’; u, as the medial vowels in ‘fool’; o, or o, as in ‘bone’; ai, or ai, as ‘eye’ or ‘aye’, respectively; and au, as the medial sound in ‘fowl’.  Short a, with stress, is pronounced like the u in ‘but’; and if without stress, as an indistinct vowel, like the A in ‘America’.

The Editor’s notes, being designed merely to explain and illustrate the text, so as to render the book fully intelligible and helpful to readers of the present day, have been compressed into the narrowest possible limits.  Even India changes, and observations and criticisms which were perfectly true when recorded can no longer be safely applied without explanation to the India of to-day.  The Author’s few notes are distinguished by his initials.

A copious analytical index has been compiled.  The bibliography is as complete as careful inquiry could make it, but it is possible that some anonymous papers by the Author, published in periodicals, may have escaped notice.

The memoir of Sir William Sleeman is based on the slight sketch prefixed to the Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, supplemented by much additional matter derived from his published works and correspondence, as well as from his unpublished letters and other papers generously communicated by his only son, Captain Henry Sleeman.  Ample materials exist for a full account of Sir William Sleeman’s noble and interesting life, which well deserves to be recorded in detail; but the necessary limitations of these volumes preclude the Editor from making free use of the biographical matter at his command.

The reproduction of the twenty-four coloured plates of varying merit which enrich the original edition has not been considered desirable.  The map shows clearly the route taken by the Author in the journey the description of which is the leading theme of the book.

EDITOR’S PREFACE (1915)

My edition published by Archibald Constable and Company in 1893 being out of print but still in demand, Mr. Humphrey Milford, the present owner of the copyright, has requested me to revise the book and bring it up to date.

This new edition is issued uniform with Mr. Beauchamp’s third edition of Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies by the Abbe J. A. Dubois (Oxford:  at the Clarendon Press, 1906), a work bearing a strong resemblance in substance to the Rambles and Recollections, and, also like Sleeman’s book in that it ’is as valuable to-day as ever it was—­even more valuable in some respects’.