1 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
2 Tue extreme ignorance which appears to pre-
3 vail in this country regarding a State which has
4 lately acquired a high degree of interest in the
5 eyes of Englishmen, has led to the nreparation
6 of the following pages. The Author might have
7 established a claim to originality, by laying
8 nothing before the public that was not exclu-
9 sively the result of his own observations during
10 a nine years’ residence among the Sikhs; but
11 he has preferred to give, in a concentrated form,
12 the fullest information available to those who
13 choose to seek for it, and therefore limits his
14 prétensions to those of the careful compiler.
15 The authorities chiefly consulted — where the -
16 notes of the Author himself were scanty, or his