To those for whose perusal the following pages were originally written
they are affectionately dedicated.
Preface.
With the fullest sense of the responsibility incurred by the addition
of another volume to the countless numbers already existing, and daily
appearing in the world, the following Diary has been committed to the
press, trusting that, as it was not written WITH INTENT to publication,
the unpremeditated nature of the offence may be its extenuation, and
that as a faithful picture of travel in regions where excursion trains
are still unknown, and Travellers' Guides unpublished, the book may
not be found altogether devoid of interest or amusement. Its object
is simply to bring before the reader's imagination those scenes and
incidents of travel which have already been a source of enjoyment to
the writer, and to impart, perhaps, by their description, some portion
of the gratification which has been derived from their reality. With
this view, the original Diary has undergone as little alteration of
form or matter as possible, and is laid before the reader as it was
sketched and written during the leisure moments of a wandering life,
hoping that faithfulness of detail may atone in it for faults and
failings in a literary and artistic point of view.
Although the journey it describes was written without the advantages
of a previous acquaintance with the writings of those who had already
gone over the same ground, subsequent research has added much to the
interest of the narrative, and information thus obtained has been
added either in the form of Notes or Appendix. Under the latter head,
acknowledgment is principally due to an able and interesting essay
on the architecture of Cashmere, by Capt. Cunningham, and also to a
paper by M. Klaproth, both of whom appear to have treated more fully
than any other writers the subjects to which they refer.
As differences will be found to occur in the names of places,
&c. between the parts thus added and the remainder of the book,
it may be well to explain that in the former only are they spelt
according to the usually received method of rendering words of Eastern
origin in the Roman character. By this system the letters A, E, I,
O, and U, are given the sounds of the corresponding Italian vowels;
I and U are pronounced as in "hit" and "put;" and the letter A is
made to represent the short U in the word "cut." In this way it is
that Cashmere, correctly pronounced Cushmere, comes to be written
Kashmir, and Mutun, pronounced as the English word "mutton,"[1] is
written Matan, both of which, to the initiated, represent the true
sound of the words. Those who have adopted the system, however, have
not always employed it throughout, nor given with it the key by which
it alone becomes intelligible; and the result has been that in many
ways, but principally from the un-English use made of the letter A,
it has tended quite as much to mislead and confuse, as to direct.
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