xvIII PREFACE
character of my explorations will convey some idea of the heavy tasks which the elaboration of their over-abundant results has laid on my shoulders since my return. When so much detailed research had to be started on new materials likely to need scholarly application for years, it seemed doubly important that I should work out my own observations and conclusions in broad outlines and
make them available as soon as possible. I realized
from the first that the publication of a general narrative like the present offered the most suitable place for their early record. Hence these volumes were to serve not for the mere reproduction of diary leaves or first impressions of travel, but, apart from any personal interest they may possess, also as a prelude, and in some respects a necessary complement, to my Detailed Scientific Report.
This close connection has made the preparation of the present book a more responsible task than may appear on the surface. It also imposes upon me the duty of recording, however briefly, the manifold help without which it would have been impossible to reap the true results of my efforts in the field. Most of all do I owe gratitude to the Government of India, which, with the approval of H.M.'s Secretary of State, sanctioned my being placed on ' special duty ' in England for a period of two years and three months, in
order that I might be able to devote myself to these tasks within easy reach of my collection of antiquities. I hope that when it will be possible to make this accessible to the public by a temporary exhibition, and still more when the publication of my Detailed Report, as sanctioned by H.M.'s Secretary of State, in four quarto volumes, will be completed, the value of the official help thus extended to me will be fully appreciated.
It would have been quite impossible for me to accomplish within a reasonable time all the manifold labours connected with the arrangement and description of my collection and the study of its embarras de richesse in remains
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