Journal of a Residence in India

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In 1809, Maria Graham, a British writer of travel books and children's books, had arrived in India at Bombay with her father, when he was appointed as head of the naval works at the English East India Company's dockyard in Bombay. From here she travelled extensively to the caves of Carli, the rock cut Elephanta Caves, Salsette and Poona and from Bombay she went on to Ceylon where she went from Point de Galle to as far as Negombo and then Trincomalee before returning to India at Madras from where she went to Calcutta before heading back for England in 1811. The style of narration, in the writer's own words, is that of an 'observant stranger'. She described vividly the customs, topography, the bazaars, art, mythology and other glimpses of the places she visited.

Maria Graham (1785-1842) was a British travel and children's books writer.

THOUGH India has certainly been visited by a greater number of intelligent Englishmen than any other foreign country, and has been the subject of innumerable publications, it is remarkable that there is no work in our language containing such a popular and comprehensive view of its scenery and monuments, and of the manners and habits of its natives and resident colonists, as we are commonly furnished with by travellers in countries incona, parably less deserving of notice. The chief reason of this probably is, that few people go to this remote region as mere idle or philosophical observers ; and that of the multitude of welleducated individuals who pass the best part of their days in it, the greater part are too constantly occupied with the cares and duties of their respective vocations as statesmen, soldiers, or traders, to pay much attention to what is merely curious or interesting to a contemplative spectator. Having for the most part, too, the prospect of a long residence, they rarely think, on their first arrival, of recording or digesting the impressions which they receive from the spectacle that is spread before them, and wait so long to mature and extend their information, that the interest of novelty is lost, and the scene becomes too familiar to seem any longer worth the trouble of a careful delineation. The fact ac-cordingly is, that almost all our modern publications on the subject of India, are entirely occupied with its political and military history,-details and suggestions upon its trade and commercial resources,-and occasionally with discussions upon the more recondite parts of its literary or mythological antiquities. Not with-standing the great number of these books, therefore, and the un-questionable excellence of many of them, there still seemed to be room for a more popular work on the subject of this great country,-a work which, without entangling its readers in the thorny walk of politics or commercial speculation, should bring before them much of what strikes the eye and the mind of an observant stranger,-and addressing itself rather to the general reader than to those who are professionally connected with the regions it de-scribes, should perform the same humble but useful office as to India, which tolerably well written books of travels have done as to most of the other countries of the world.