RAMBLES AND RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN OFFICIAL

London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1844. First Edition. Hardcover. Partly unopened; scattered foxing but text and plates mostly clean. Some fraying along spine edges; gilt fairly bright. Easily Very Good in a Fine clamshell box. Two 6-1/2" x 9-3/4" volumes in publisher's gilt-decorated and lettered green cloth: xii, 478; vii, [i], 459, [1] pages. Housed in a green cloth clamshell box. Illustrated with 32 color chromolithographic plates with tissue guards. Lieutenant-Colonel William Henry Sleeman, who spent his entire career in India, was best known for his fight to suppress the activities of "thugs," bands of criminals who attacked, robbed, and often murdered innocent travelers. In these volumes he describes his experiences doing so as well as his thoughts on various aspects of Indian life, including Hinduism, local festivals and folklore, natural history, governance, military discipline, and the justice system. In 1828 Sleeman made the first documented discovery of dinosaur fossils in Asia, before the term "dinosaur" was even formally coined. ABBEY TRAVEL 466. (Inventory #: 022107)