ORIENTAL EXPERIENCE:

A SELECTION OF

ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES DELIVERED ON

VARIOUS OCCASIONS.

BY SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, BART.,

G.C.S.I., C.I.E., D.C L., LL.D.,

LATE GOVERNOR OF BOMBAY, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF BENGAL,

AUTHOR OF

AND FINANCE MINISTER OF INDIA;

'INDIA IN 1880,"
," "MEN AND EVENTS OF MY TIME," ETC.

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1883.

The Right of Translation is Reserved.

MEN AND EVENTS OF MY TIME IN INDIA.
Second Edition. 8vo. 168.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET

AND CHARING CROSS.

TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS

ALEXANDRA,

PRINCESS OF WALES,

This Book,

REFERRING TO REGIONS VISITED

BY HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES,

IS,

WITH HER GRACIOUS PERMISSION,

DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

THIS book is intended to be a continuation of my two former books, 'India in 1880,' and 'Men and Events of my time in India.' The volume comprises a collection of addresses and speeches delivered before Societies or Associations in Great Britain, and articles contributed to English magazines, by me since my return to England in 1880. They all relate to one great subject, namely, the East, and in that sense are all connected together. Almost all of them are the results of my personal experience. Though they are entirely pervaded by the one idea of that duty which we British people owe to ourselves and to others in the East, yet there is no sameness about them. On the contrary, there will, I trust, be found in them a ceaseless variety. In this loom, so to speak, are extended numerous threads of divers hues, but they are crossed by a woof of one colour, and that represents British responsibility. Thus the texture has an uniformity in general appearance with an endless diversity in detail. While British India naturally occupies a considerable portion of the volume, other regions of the East come into view. Out of the twenty-one chapters in the book, eleven refer to Indian affairs, and the remainder to different subjects in the East.

These latter chapters relate to the progress of survey and exploration throughout Asia by European and American travellers who, in adventure, in peril, in suffering, have widened the limits of human knowledge, and of whom some