The History of China & India, pictorial and descriptive

Preface

. IT is often convenient to find, in a small compass, the chief points of any subject of general interest; and this consideration, it is hoped, will be admitted as a sufficient apology for putting forth a volume with what may be deemed a somewhat pre suming title. To one who professes to write only for the juvenile world, the task of adapting a work for general reading, must, necessarily, present many difficulties, and may expose its author to a charge of presumption; but a sense of the indulgence she has already so liberally experienced, has encouraged her in making this attempt to combine, in a single volume, the histories of the two great Eastern empires, with a descriptive account of those countries, and the peculiar characteristics of their inhabitants. Justice to the artists employed on the embellishments of this publication, demands the acknowledgement that its value has been greatly enhanced by their pictorial illustrations, which render it a book of elegant amusement for the drawing-room table. THE HISTORY OF CHINA.