This fourth volume, with the preceding Handbooks of Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, completes the Handbook of India. The reader, who may detect inaccuracies, will it is hoped be good enough to consider the vast amount of labour required by so extensive a work. When the subject was mentioned to Lord Lytton, he observed that such a work in point of magnitude was like writing a Handbook of Europe, and it may be said that in addition to the time occupied in preparing the first editions of the Handbooks of Madras and Bombay, the Author has devoted six years to visiting all parts of India, and to the studies required for the whole undertaking. This volume is intended to guide the traveller to and through a great part of Rájputáná, and those northern provinces of India, which are directly, or indirectly, ruled by the Lientenant-Governor of the Panjáb. They cover an area several thousand miles greater than that of Germany. No territory in the world of equal extent possesses so great a variety of scenery, beginning from the vast plains round Delhi, and bordering the Five Rivers, and ending with the towering heights of the abode of snow, where for example the Nanga Parwat, one of the highest mountains known to man, rises to an altitude of 26,629 ft. or more.
