731 INDIA j, ni i e ip- TNDIA is a great empire of Asia, composed of twelve JL provinces under direct British administration, and about one hundred and fifty feudatory states and princi palities, which equally with the British provinces acknow ledge the paramount sovereignty of the British crown. The whole empire contains close on 1 million square miles, and 240 millions of inhabitants. The area, there fore, is almost equal to, and the population is just equal to, the area and population of all Europe, less Russia. The people exactly double Gibbon s estimate of 120 millions for all the races and nations which obeyed Imperial Rome. The Name. The natives of India can scarcely be said to have a word of their own by which to express their common country. In Sanskrit, it would be called " Bharata-varsha," from Bharata, a legendary monarch of the Lunar line ; but Sanskrit is no more the vernacular of India than Latin is of Europe. The name " Hindustan," which was at one time adopted by European geographers, is of Persian origin, meaning " the land of the Hindus," as Afghanistan means " the laud of the Afghans." According to native usage, however, "Hindustan" is limited either to that portion of the peninsula lying north of the Vindhya mountains, or yet more strictly to the upper basin of the Ganges where Hindi is the spoken language. The " East Indies," as opposed to the " West Indies," is an old- fashioned and inaccurate phrase, dating from the dawn of maritime discovery, and still lingering in certain parlia mentary papers. " India," the abstract form of a word derived through the Greeks from the Persicized form of the Sanskrit sindku, a "river," pre-eminently the Indus, has become familiar since the British acquired the country, and is now officially recognized in the imperial title of the sovereign. THE COUNTRY. General Outline. India, as thus defined, is the middle of the three irregularly shaped peninsulas which jut out southwards from the mainland of Asia, thus corresponding roughly to the peninsula of Italy in the map of Europe. tion Its form is that of a great triangle, with its base resting upon the Himalayan range, and its apex running far into the ocean. The chief part of its western side is washed by the Arabian Sea, and the chief part of its eastern side by the Bay of Bengal. It extends from the 8th to the 35th degree of north latitude, that is to say, from the hottest regions of the equator to far within the temperate zone. The capital, Calcutta, lies in 88 E. long. ; so that when the sun sets at six o clock there, it is just past mid-day in England, and early morning in New York. The length of India from north to south, and its greatest breadth from east to west, are both about 1900 miles; but the triangle tapers with a pear-shaped curve to a point at Cape Comorin, its southern extremity. To this compact dominion the English have added, under the name of British Burmali, the strip of country on the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal. But on the other hand, the adjacent island of Ceylon has been artificially severed, and placed under the colonial office. Two groups of islands in the Bay of Bengal, the Andamans and the Nicobars ; one group in the Arabian sea, the Laccadives ; and the outlying station of Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, are all politically included within the Indian empire ; while dots on the shore of the peninsula itself, representing Portuguese and French settle ments, break at intervals the continuous line of British territory. India is shut off from the rest of Asia on the north by a vast mountainous region, known in the aggregate as the Boun- Himalayas, amid which lie the independent states of Bhutan daries. and Nepal, with the great table-land of Tibet behind. The native principality of Kashmir occupies the north-western angle of India, with Eastern Turkestdn stretching to the north beyond it. At this north-western angle (in 35 N. lat., 74 3 E. long.) the mountains curve southwards, and India is separated by the well-marked ranges of the Sufed Koh and SulaimAn from Afghanistan ; and by a southern continuation of lower hills (the Halas,&c.) from Baluchistdn. The last part of the western land frontier of India is formed by the river Hab, and the boundary ends at Cape Monze, at the mouth of its estuary, in 24 50 N. lat., 66 38 E. long. Still farther southwards, India is bounded along the W. and S.W. by the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Turning northwards from the southern extremity at Cape Comorin (8 4 20" N. lat., 77 35 35" E. long.), the long sea-line of the Bay of Bengal forms the main part of its eastern boundary. But on the north-east, as on the north west, India has again a land frontier. The Himalayan ranges at the north-eastern angle (in about 28 N. lat., 97 E. long.) throw off spurs and chains to the south-east. These spurs, which have been but imperfectly explored, and may possibly constitute an independent mountain system, separate the British provinces of Assam and Eastern Bengal from Independent Burmah. They are known successively as the Abar, Naga, Patkoi, and Barel ranges. Turning almost due south in 25 lat., they culmi nate in the Blue Mountain (7100 feet), in 22 37 N. lat., 93 10 E. long., and then stretch southwards under the name of the Arakan Yomas, separating British Burmah from independent Burmah, until they again rise into the mountain of Myeng-mateng (4700 feet), in 1 9i of N. lat. Up to this point, the eastern frontier follows, generally speaking, the watershed which divides the river systems of the Brahma putra, Meghna, Kuladan (Koladyne), <fec., in Bengal and British Burmah, from the Irawadi basin in Independent Burmah. But from near the base of the Myeng-mateug Mountain, in about 19| lat., the British frontier stretches almost due east, in an artificial line which divides the lower districts and delta of the Irawadi in British Burmah from the middle and upper districts of that river in Independent Burmali. Stretching south-eastwards from the delta of the Irawadi, a confused succession of little explored ranges separates the British province of Tenasserim from the native kingdom of Siam. The boundary line runs down to Point Victoria at the extremity of Tenasserim (9 59 N. lat., 98 32 E. long.), following in a somewhat rough manner the watershed between the rivers of the British territory on the west and of Siam on the east. The empire included within these boundaries is rich in Three varieties of scenery and climate, from the highest mountains region* in the world to vast river deltas raised only a few inches above the level of the sea. It forms a continent rather than a country. But if we could look down on the whole from a balloon, we should find that India consists of three separate and well-defined tracts. The first includes the lofty Himalaya mountains, which shut it out from the rest of Asia ; and which, although for the most part beyond the British frontier, form an overruling factor in the physical geography of northern India. The second region stretches southwards from the base of the Himdlayas, and comprises the plains of the great rivers which issue from them. The third region slopes upward again from the edge of the river plains, and consists of a high three-sided table-land, sup
ported by the Vindhya mountains on the north, and by the
