AUTHOR'S FOREWORDIf this book cannot claim in the highest sense of the word the name of History, it is at least the result of some research and labour, things sadly required in Indian history as a preparatory clearing of the ground for more ambitious work. To me this heavy task has been its own exceeding great reward (the only one, I fear, ever likely to come to me) ; it has served to bridge over the period between active life and the first advances of old age, and through it I have failed to "feel the weight of too much liberty". At some future day the genius may arise who shall make these dead bones live ; and when in a foot-note this "Gibbon of the future" flings me a word of acknowledgment, I shall be satisfied. Meanwhile, the scenic artists, who deal in picturesque narrative and like to lay on the colours thick, may not disdain to appropriate something from my sober pages as a background for their adjectives ; while the official gazetteer-maker and the compiler of little books will be able to fill up many a meagre outline and correct much erroneous chronology. Some writer, if I remember rightly, complains that Indian historians are chary of dates ; if he will open my work, he will find out how wide this is of the truth. In fact he will, I fear, receive a surfeit of dates, many more, at any rate y than he will care to digest.
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