Full Title:
Hand book for India and Egypt, comprising the narrative of a journey from Calcutta to England, by way of the River Ganges, the north west of Hindostan, the Himalayas, the rivers Sutledge and Indus, Bombay and Egypt, and hints for the guidance of passengers by that and other overland routes to the three presidencies of India.

Bibliographic Details
Author: J.H. Stocqueler.
Title: Hand Book for India and Egypt .
Place: London.
Publisher: Wm. H. Allen & Co.
Date: 1841.
xx+492, one plate and one map (not available in digital edition)
Dewey Code: 915.404314 P224h
Item Number: 3 2934 02220036 6
Holding Institution: La Trobe University Library Bundoora.

About the Book
This book is in two parts, the first part (pp. 1-278.) is an account of the journey Stocqueler made starting in August 13 th 1840 from Calcutta up the Ganges and then up to Simla and from there down the Indus to Bombay and from there to Egypt and to England where he arrived on January 16 th 1841. Amongst the many interesting features of the book is the account of the recent introduction of steam ships on the Ganges and the Indus and the revolution in transport which this has lead to. Also it is very refreshing to read an account of Cawnpore from before 1857 which instead of battles focuses on the ‘Gaieties of Cawnpore' (p. 83).

The Title plate from the Book

The second part, called ‘Appendix' (pp. 279-492), is a compendium of materials that the author thought might be useful to people intending to travel to India, including details on distances of locations from each other, what to see and do in Egypt, how to sail to India and guides to Madras and Calcutta. These two final guides are very interesting in their own right and are some of the earliest guides to each city available. The Calcutta guide is an extract from a " Stranger's guide," by Mr. Mendes of Calcutta , from 1841. It contains a reference to the establishment of the Calcutta Public Library at the instigation of a ‘Mr Stocqueler' (p. 482).

(See also http://pib.nic.in/feature/feyr2003/fmar2003/f270320031.html , accessed: 09/10/2005 )

Note on the digitisation process
For the most part the digitisation was fairly straightforward and the OCR process fairly trouble free. However, some sections of the tables in the middle of the book are not completely satisfactory or fully proof read. This is because there are problems in working out how to deal with the arrangement of the text in html format, due to the use of curly brackets relating single items in one column to multiple items in another column, which mean it is better to consult the pdf versions of these pages directly.

Dr Peter G. Friedlander
Asian Studies
La Trobe University, VIC 3086
Australia
Tel: 61 + 3 9479 2064
Fax: 61 + 3 9479 1880
Email: p.friedlander@latrobe.edu.au