A New Geography of the Indian Empire and Ceylon (1926)

Political Divisions of the Indian Empire

        The Indian Empire may be divided into four parts¾India proper, Frontier India, Burma, and Frontier Burma.

        I. India proper includes¾ (I.) British India-that is, all the territories between the Himalayas in the north, their offshoots in the east and west, and the sea on the south, which have from time to time come under the authority of the British Crown. These are Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, Assam, the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, the Punjab, Delhi, Ajmer-Merwara, the Central Provinces and Berar, Bombay, Madras, Coorg, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

        (2.) Feudatory Indian States under protection of the Indian Government but not under its jurisdiction. These are the Rajputana Agency, Central India Agency, Hyderabad State, Mysore State, Baroda State, Gwalior State, and the states connected with Bengal, the new province of Bihar and Orissa, Assam, the United Provinces, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, Bombay, and Madras.

        2. Frontier India includes those countries on the frontier which are Empire territory, such as British Baluchistan, or over which the Indian Government exercises protection because they are on the outer edge of the Empire. They are: (I.) In the north-west Baluchistan, the North-west Frontier Province, and Kashmir; (2.) in the north-Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim; (3.) in the north-east¾the Assam border tribes and Manipur.

        3. Burma (Upper and Lower), which is Empire territory.

        4. Frontier Burma¾that is, the country of the Burmese frontier tribes, some of which is Empire territory and some not.

Provinces of India

        BENGAL.

        The province of Bengal is roughly shaped like an isosceles triangle with base on the Bay of Bengal and its apex touching the Himalayas in Kinchinjunga. It is bounded on the west by the Province of Bilhar and Orissa, and on the east by Assam and Burma.

        Physical Aspects.—Except round Darjeeling and in the Chittagong Hills, Bengal is low-lying and flat, and consists of deep fine silt brought down from mountains by the Ganges and Brahmaputra, and by their countless feeders, large and small. Bengal is thus the gift of its rivers, and every part of it has, at one time or other, been delta-formed. The seaward edge of the province is made up of the Sundarbans, a network of estuaries, rivers, lagoons, and tidal marshes enclosing a vast number of islands, which are themselves often half swamp. Of these the sacred island of Sagar is alone worth remembering. The land inland from this and right up to the foot of the Himalayas is low-lying. In many parts the rivers have built up their banks above the level of the surrounding country, so that the spaces between them are low, ill drained, and water-logged. Thus in the rains a great part of Bengal is under water. Only in the frontier district of Darjeeling, between Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim, does the province extend into the Himalayas and become mountainous.

        Climate, Rainfall, Soil, and Productions.¾ The climate of Bengal can be summed up in two words¾ hot and damp. The bay branch of the summer monsoon sweeps right across the country and dashes against the Assam Hills and the Himalayas, so that Bengal receives a plentiful and unfailing supply of rain. Famine is, in consequence, unknown. Besides the rain that falls in the province itself, Bengal gets the benefit through the Ganges, Bramahputra, and Meghna of much of the drainage of the Vindhya ranges and of the Himalayas and their eastern offshoots. In Bengal man does not trouble much about irrigation canals, for Nature, by her magnificent waterways, saves him the necessity. The soil is, almost everywhere, deep, rich, alluvial mud, well mixed and rubbed into the finest loam by the great rivers which, during thousands of years, have carried it down from the uplands and spread it over the surface of the land.

        Crops.¾Rice.¾A flat country which is often flooded and a hot climate exactly suit paddy, which can here be grown without artificial irrigation, and two crops can generally be reaped. Bengal is really one vast paddy field, and is the chief rice-growing province in India.

        Sugar-Cane is another plant which likes a damp, rich soil, and it is therefore also a large crop in Bengal. So, for similar reasons, is tobacco. Wheat is grown, but not nearly so largely as farther up the Ganges plains, where the greater cold of the winter months and the drier climate suit it better.

        Jute.¾Bengal grows nearly all the jute produced in India. One reason for this is that jute, being a plant which quickly exhausts the soil, can best be grown on fields which are constantly renewed by fresh layers of mud¾exactly what happens in Bengal. Another reason is that the flat country abounds in marshes and stagnant pools, in which the plant, after being reaped, may be retted to prepare its fibers for manufacture. A great deal of jute is exported.

        Tea is another important crop grown for exportation. The chief tea-gardens are on the Himalayan slopes round about Darjeeling. Cinchona, which flourishes only at a high elevation, is grown on a small scale by Government near Darjeeling.

        Race, Language, and Religion. ¾In Bengal the people are of mixed Dravidian and Mongolian race, though certain classes are more or less of Aryan stock. The majority are Hindus, but Mohammedans predominate in the eastern parts of the province. Bengali is spoken everywhere.

        Population.¾Owing to the great fertility of the land and its minute cultivation, Bengal is very thickly populated. The number of waterways and the ease with which roads and railways can be made over the flat surface have rendered trade easy, and this has also helped the increase of population. Although the province has a population of over 41/2 crores, there are comparatively few towns. Bengal more than any other part of India is a country of villages and hamlets. The towns are for the most part situated on the rivers and are engaged in river traffic. Many of them lie on the main waterway of the Bhagirathi (Hooghly) e.g. Murshidabad, Berhampore, Krishnagar, Santipur, Hooghly, Chinsurah, Chandernagore, Howrah, and Calcutta.

        Cities and Towns.¾Calcutta (896,000 or with suburbs, 1,328,000), lies along the left bank of the Hooghly about 80 miles from the sea. It is the creation of modern commerce and unlike most Indian cities, it is not old. When Delhi, Agra, Benares, and Lucknow were ancient towns, the site of Calcutta was occupied by three mud villages.

        In 1686 the English merchants at Hooghly, with their President, Job Charnock, retreated down the stream to a spot on the left bank where they were protected from the Marathas on the other side, where was the highest point of the river which sea-going vessels could reach, and where they had a good anchorage. This was the beginning of the town, but modern Calcutta dates from 1756, when it was retaken by Clive and Watson from the forces of Suraj-ud-Daulah, and the first Fort William was built. From that time it has advanced steadily in size and importance till it is now, including its suburbs, the largest city in the British Empire except London.

        I. From 1772 to 1912 it was the capital of India, and its wealth and importance have increased as the Empire of India has grown and developed. Besides being the capital of India, it has also been the capital of the province of Bengal. A large population has grown round the centre where the Governments of India and of Bengal have had their chief offices, where the Law Courts are held, and where the University has its seat.

        2. These would have made Calcutta an important town even if it had stood in a desert, but the city owes far more to the second cause¾ namely, commerce. Calcutta is the greatest commercial and trading centre, not only of India, but of Asia. This is largely due to its position. On land: ¾

        (I.) Bombay is cut off from the rest of India by the Western the Ghats; Madras has behind it the Deccan and Carnatic, where famine often prevails, an inland from Karachi stretches the Great Indian Desert; but Calcutta lies close to wide fertile plains, and in the midst of a rich delta where famine is unknown.

        (2.) Calcutta is easily reached from all the most important parts of Northern India. The country right up to the north-west frontier on the one side, and to the end of the valleys of Assam on the other, is flat. Hence roads can easily be made in all directions, canals can be dug where necessary, railways are cheaply and easily built, and the numberless rivers of the plains and deltas form splendid natural waterways. On sea:¾

        (3.) Calcutta is the place where the roads, railways, and waterways of the land meet the great highway of the ocean. It is the great mart where the produce of India's plains is exchanged for the produce and manufactures of every country in the world.

        The port of Calcutta extends for about five miles along the banks of the Hooghly, where ships lie at anchor in the river. There are also docks at Kidderpur. But it is only with difficulty that the Hooghly channel can be kept clear for the passage of ships, for its bed is always shifting and is apt to silt up. On the James and Mary Shoal, between Calcutta and the sea, many ships have been wrecked. To keep the fairway of the Hooghly clear, dredgers are constantly at work. No ship is allowed to go up or down without a trained pilot on board. For the information of these pilots the state of the riverbed and shoals is daily telegraphed to Calcutta and to Diamond Harbour, 60 miles down the river.

        3. Calcutta is, next to Bombay, the greatest manufacturing city in India. The chief of these manufactures is the spinning and weaving of jute. Calcutta has become the world's supplier of jute-cloth and gunny bags. There are also cotton mills, paper mills, rope works (hemp and coir), sugar factories, engineering works, and iron foundries. A great advantage to the manufactures of Calcutta is the nearness of the Raniganj coal-field, from which cheap fuel can be got for the engines and steamers. In the manufacture of jute, Calcutta has a great advantage in a monopoly of the crop, which grows at its doors, in cheap labour, cheap land, and cheap coal.

        Calcutta, more than any other place in India, resembles a great English manufacturing town. For miles along the Hooghly banks stand mills with their tall smoking chimneys, and the river, with its crowded shipping, reminds an Englishman of the Mersey or the Thames. There are also cotton and silk mills, rice mills, oil mills, paper mills, sugar mills, and jute presses. Some of the public buildings are very fine. Howrah, on the opposite side of the Hooghly, is really a suburb of Calcutta. Other suburbs are Alipore, Cossipore (with a gun factory), and Garden Reach, the two former now included in Calcutta.

        Howrah (195,000) stands on the Hooghly, opposite Calcutta, with which it is connected by a bridge supported on boats. The city is a very good example of how quickly a town can increase by trade and manufactures in the modern days of steam and iron. A hundred years ago it was a small village; during the last thirty years its population has doubled, and its importance has vastly increased. There are three main reasons for this: (I) Howrah is the terminus of the East Indian and the Bengal-Nagpur Railways, which carry the Ganges valley traffic to and from Calcutta; (2) it is really a part of the port of Calcutta and shares its immense foreign trade; (3) its jute mills, iron foundries, and other modern industries have largely increased and are increasing.

        Dacca (119,000), the largest city in Bengal next to Calcutta and Howrah, stands on the Buriganga, and close to many other waterways. Unlike Calcutta, it was a large and prosperous town before the days of British rule, and was for a century the court capital of the Mohammedan Governor. The chief of the court industries was the weaving of the world-famous fine muslins, which were exported in large quantities to Europe, but during last century this industry declined owing to the competition of cheaper Manchester goods. In recent years, however, the weaving industry has revived, and Dacca exports large quantities of special cloth to Turkey and other Mohammedan countries. Owing to the fertility of the country round about, and to its nearness to several good waterways, Dacca is increasing in size and trade. It lays in the centre the jute-producing districts, and is the most important inland mart in Bengal, being a centre for the collection and export of jute and oil-seeds. It is now the seat of a University.

        Chittagong, 12 miles up the Karnaphuli River, is one of the best ports in India, and exports the rice and jute grown in the eastern part of the province, and the tea of Assam. It is now connected with the fertile Surma valley by a railway, which runs across the Cachar Hills and up the Assam valley. Chittagong is thus the direct sea-outlet of Assam. It has jute mills.

        Other Towns.¾Narayanganj, Sirajganj, Goalanda, and Nasirabad are all important centres of jute and rice traffic on the Brahmaputra and its branches. So is Chandpur.

        Raniganj, in the Damodar valley, though small, is one of the busiest places in Bengal, and is the centre of the largest coalfield in India. Potteries and paper-mills, attracted by the coal, have been started. It is close to Asansol, the railway junction from which the coal is sent to all parts.

        Darjeeling, 7,000 feet above sea level, on the Himalayas, is an important hill station and the seat of the Bengal Government during the hot weather. It is reached by a " toy railway " from the main line at Siliguri, and is the centre of a large tea-growing district, and of the wool trade with Tibet.

        Indian State.¾Cooch Bihar, on the plains at the foot of the Himalayas, is reached by a railway.

        History.¾After the battle of Buxar in 1764 the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa was conferred on the East India Company by the Moghal Emperor, Shah Alam. Orissa at that time only included the Bengal district of Midnapore, and Orissa proper was annexed to the province of Bengal after the second Maratha War in 1803, when it was ceded by the Bonsla Raja of Nagpur. Other provinces, known as the ceded and conquered provinces, were added as conquests went on, but in 1836 these were separated from Bengal under the name of the North-West Provinces. In 1874 Assam was separated from Bengal, and made into a province by itself. In 1835 the Raja of Sikkim ceded the hill station of Darjeeling, and the country round it was annexed in 1850. In 1905 the Government of India resolved to relieve the Government of Bengal of some of its work. It was thought to be too hard a task for one Government properly to administer this great territory and vast population. Accordingly the eastern part of Bengal (consisting of the Chittagong, Rajshahi divisions, the district of Malda, and the state of Hill Tippera) was transferred to Assam and formed into a new province to be called Eastern Bengal and Assam. At the same time five Hindi-speaking states in Chota Nagpur were transferred to the Central Provinces and five Uriya-speaking states were taken from the Central Provinces and added to the Orissa division of Bengal, In 1912, following on the King-Emperor's Proclamation at the Delhi Durbar the previous year, a fresh division was made as follows: ¾

        I. The Bhagalpur (except Darjeeling district), Patna, Tirhut, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa divisions, which till then formed part of the province, were cut off and formed into a new province to be called Bihar and Orissa.

        2. Assam was detached from Bengal and formed into a separate province as it used to be.

        3. The Eastern Bengal parts of the old province which had been cut off in 1905 were restored to Bengal, and the Presidency of Bengal now consists of the divisions of Burdwan, Presidency, Rajshahi, Dacca and Chittagong, and the district of Darjeeling.

        This newly-formed province occupies a roughly rectangular area between the Hilamayas and the Bay of Bengal. It consists of the flat, low-lying alluvial plains of the Ganges in the north, the table-lands of Chota Nagpur and Orissa in the south and west, and the flat delta of the Mahanadi along the shores of the Bay of Bengal.

        Boundaries. ¾N. Nepal. E. Bengal. S. The Bay of Bengal and Madras. W. The Central Provinces and the United Provinces.

        Points for the eye to remember.¾The point where the Ganges receives the Gogra in the west and the point where it bends round the Rajmahal Hills in the east: the Chilka Lake. Note that the province extend, beyond the Ganges in the north and beyond the Mahanadi in the south.

        Physical Aspects. ¾Table-land.¾ The great bulk of the province is taken up by the Chota Nagpur table-land, extending inland into the Central Provinces. Here the country is quite unlike flat Bengal, being broken into numerous groups and ranges of hills, which in Orissa, rise to considerable peaks. These hills are often steep, and are separated by deep ravines or open valleys. They are covered with coarse grass or jungle, and only their valleys are cultivated.

        Plains.¾The most fertile and important parts of the province are the plains. On both sides of the Ganges in its course east-wards to the Rajmahal bend there is a broad, flat, and very fertile alluvial plain. In the north this plain stretches to the foot of the Himalayas, and in the south slopes gradually up to the Chota Nagpur table-land. Here population is densest and the towns and villages most numerous.

        Delta and Coast-strip.¾The flat deltas of the Mahanadi and Brahmani are also very fertile and thickly populated.

        Climate, Soil, and Productions.¾The climate of the province is on the whole hotter in summer and cooler in winter than in the deltas of Bengal. The rainfall is plentiful everywhere. In the low-lying plains of the Ganges and in the Mahanadi delta the soil is deep, fertile alluvium, and the land is watered by many rivers. On the uplands of the table-lands, however, the soil is less fertile, being gravelly and rocky, and the slope quickly carries off the water of the hill streams into the larger rivers. The best land in the table-land is in the valleys, where it is leveled and carefully cultivated with crops such as paddy and sugar-cane. The less fertile slopes are roughly planted with maize, oil-seeds, and pulses.

        Owing to the warm climate, good rainfall, and fertile soil, the chief crop is everywhere rice, and in most parts two harvests of it are reaped every year. The largest crops are, of course, grown on the flat plains of the Ganges and on the well-watered Mahanadi delta.

        This province, where coal and iron are mined close together, is the chief source of mineral wealth in India. It contains nearly 600 coalmines.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people of the province are, in the main, of Dravidian race, but in the north there is a strong mixture of Aryan blood and in the south of Mongolian. The wild tribes of the Chota Nagpur highlands are almost pure Dravidians. The people nearly all speak Aryan languages¾Bengali and Hindi in the north, and Uriya in Orissa. The hill tribes speak Dravidian dialects. Hinduism is the prevailing religion, but the rude tribes in Chota Nagpur and the hill tracts of Orissa are mostly Animists.

        Population and Towns.¾Owing to its fertility the province is thickly populated¾most thickly in the fertile plain and delta, least thickly in the jungle-clad hills of Chota Nagpur and Orissa. The towns are mostly on the banks of rivers, chiefly the Ganges and its tributaries. They have long been centres of river traffic, but in modern days the railways carry most of their trade. From the spot in the west of the province where the Ganges receives the Gogra to where it bends round the Rajmahal Hills in the east many river ports can be seen on the map. Look out Chapra on the Gogra, Sonpur on the Gandak, Patna on the Ganges, Muzaffarpur on the Little Gandak, Darbhanga far up another tributary, Monghyr, Bhagalpur, and Rajmahal on the Ganges.

        Patna, (120,000), the ancient Pataliputra, is the most important and the capital. It is an example of a city, formerly a great trade centre, which has recently been decreasing in population. Patna has always owed its importance to its position. The Gogra, the Gandak, and the Son enter the Ganges close to it, and it is thus the natural meeting-place of the traffic of these four rivers. Formerly most of the trade between the rich upper Gangetic valley and Bengal passed through Patna, but in modern times the railway, which conveys goods quicker than boats, has taken away a good deal of the trade of the city. It no longer prepares opium, as the export trade in the drug has been restricted. Its civil station is Bankipore, and Dinapore is its military cantonment. In fact, the three places form one long town along the right bank of the Ganges, and a new Patna is being built. It is the seat of a University.

        Gaya, south of Patna, is surrounded by sacred spots, and is therefore a place of pilgrimage. Near it is Buddh-Gaya, with a Buddhist shrine and the ruins of a palace of Asoka. Here can be seen the sacred pipal tree, said to be grown from the one under which Gautama sat. Bihar town is supposed by some to have been the capital of the ancient kingdom of Maghada.

        The Chota Nagpur part of the province, being hilly and less fertile than the rest, has a much sparser population and only two small towns¾ Ranchi and Hazaribagh. Ranchi is a large missionary centre. Near Hazaribagh is Parasnath Hill, a place of Jain pilgrimages. In Orissa Cuttack is the chief town. It is a " fort " town, and, being well situated for traffic by road, river, canal, and railway, is the trade centre of the fertile delta in the midst of which it stands. Puri, on the coast, south of Cuttack, is one of the most sacred places of Hinduism. During the great car festival of Jagannath, over a lakh of pilgrims visit the temple. The town itself is simply a collection of lodging-houses. Chandbali and Balasor are two small seaports. In former times, before the Hooghly was deepened, Balasor, owing to its safe roadstead, was a transshipping place for Calcutta sea-trade. Here ocean-going vessels loaded and unloaded cargo from and into smaller craft, which could navigate the shallow Hooghly. After that river was deepened by dredging, Balasor lost this trade. Sambalpur, far up the Mahanadi, is the limit of boat traffic on that river. It is the centre of a fertile district. Jamshedpur, where the Tata Steel Co. smelts iron and makes steel, has recently grown into a town of half a lakh of people.

        Indian States.¾The Tributary Mahals of Orissa comprises seventeen small states (to which in 1905 five states were added from the Central Provinces), and they occupy the hilly country lying inland from the Mahanadi delta. This hilly country is watered by the three large rivers, the Mahanadi, Brahmani, and Baitorani. The hills are covered with dense forest and jungle, and cultivation is carried on only in the valleys.

        Chota Nagpur States, two in number, are also in hilly country, and are inhabited by a backward people.

        History.¾This new province was constituted in 1912. The Bhagalpur (except Darjeeling district), Patna, Tirhut, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa divisions, which till then formed part of Bengal, were formed into a new separate province, to be called Bihar and Orissa, under a Lieutenant-Governor. The seat of government is at Patna.

        Assam is a country of forest-covered hills and two important valleys. In shape it resembles an isosceles triangle pointing north-east, with its vertex at the Himalaya bend of the Brahmaputra and its base the zig-zag line separating it from Bengal. One side of this triangle runs between the Himalayas and the Brahmaputra, and the other along the line of the Patkai and Lushai Hills south to the Blue Mountain.

        Physical Aspects.¾I. The Brahmaputra valley extends from the Himalaya bend to the Garo bend of the river, and lies between the Himalayas on the north and the line of the Patkai, Naga, Jaintia, Khasi, and Garo Hills on the south.

        2. The Surma valley, or Sylhet Plain, geographically forms art of the great plain of Bengal. It is watered by the Barak, which, after flowing northwards from the long parallel ranges of the Lushai Hills into the Cachar valley, splits into two streams, the Surma and the Kusiyara. These two rivers water the valley, and rejoin before flowing into the Meghna.

        3. A great mass of forest-covered hills, jungles, and marshes, little known, fills up the rest of the triangle of Assam.

        Climate and Productions.¾Assam is the dampest part of inland India; it rains during eight months in the year, and fogs are common. This rain and damp are suitable to the growth of tea, timber, and rice. Irrigation is not needed.

        Tea likes a damp climate and well-drained soil¾ just what it gets on the rainy slopes of the hills. Assam produces nearly two-thirds of all the tea grown in the Indian Empire. The finest tea is grown round Sadiya, near the frontier, at the extreme end of the Brahmaputra valley.

        Timber.¾Assam has the largest area of virgin forest of any province of the Indian Empire except Burma.

        Rice is grown in the valleys, and its cultivation is increasing as the jungle is cleared. Jute cultivation is now also spreading up the valleys. The damp, warm climate also suits the growth of the india-rubber tree.

        On the whole, Assam produces little in comparison with its area; only the valleys are cultivated.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾In Assam the people are of Tibeto-Burman race. Two Aryan languages, Assamese and Bengali, are most commonly spoken, and the hill tribes speak dialects of the Tibeto-Burman tongues. Hinduism is the prevailing religion, but the hill tribes are Animists.

        Population and Towns.¾Owing to the mountainous nature of the country and the prevalence of a kind of fever called kala-azar, the population is thin, except in the Surma valley. The Assamese are lazy, and leave trade and handicrafts to the foreigner. Thus, in recent years, large numbers of immigrants from Bengal have come to Assam to work in the tea-gardens. As these tea-gardens are scattered among the hills, and as communication, except by water, is difficult, trade does not gather into large centres. The towns are small, and are nearly all on the great waterways. Thus (I.) in the Brahmaputra valley Goalpara, Gauhati, Sibsagar, and Dibrugarh are centres of river traffic in tea, timber, and rice: (2) in the Surma valley Sylhet is the largest town in Assam; Silchar lies on the Barak, in the Cachar valley; Shillong, nearly 5,000 feet above sea-level, is a healthy hill station.

        Industries and Communications.¾The production of tea is the chief industry of Assam; timber maps are engaged in making tea-boxes, and there is also a little coal mining. Owing to the heavy rainfall there are numerous waterways. The Brahmaputra is navigable by steamers as far as Sadiya and the Barak as far as Silchar. In the rainy weather there are hundreds of smaller rivers large enough to form waterways both in the Brahmaputra and Cachar valleys. A railway now runs from Chittagong up the Cachar and Brahmaputra valleys to Sadiya. Owing to its fine rivers Assam does not need many roads.

        Indian State.¾Manipur, with a capital of the same name, is a long oval-shaped valley among the Lushai Hills in the south-east corner of Assam. It is difficult to reach, but a railway has now been built from Bengal as far as the Cachar valley.

        History.¾Assam includes¾ (I.) (a) the Sylhet or Surma valley, and the (b) Goalpara district of the Brahmaputra valley, both of which originally formed part of the diwani of Bengal ceded to the East India Company in 1764; (2) Assam proper, or the upper valley of the Brahmaputra, and the Cachar valley, both of which fell into British hands as the result of the first Burmese War; (3) the hill districts which have from time to time been brought under Empire rule; (4) part of the Western Dwars, a Sub-Himalayan tract lying to the south of Bhutan, which was annexed after the Bhutan War of 1864. All these, which up to 1874 formed part of the province of Bengal, were in that year formed into the separate province of Assam, under a Chief Commissioner. In 1905 a further slice of territory was added. The Chittagong, Dacca, and Rajshahi divisions of Bengal, the district of Malda, and the state of Hill Tippera were taken from the old province of Bengal and added to Assam. The province thus formed under the name of Eastern Bengal and Assam was placed under a Lieutenant-Governor. In 1912 the old arrangement was reverted to, and Assam was reconstituted as a separate province under a Chief Commissioner.

        The United Provinces of Agra and Oudh consist of the Upper Ganges, the Jumna, and their tributaries together with the hill tracts north and south.

        Boundaries.¾Himalaya-wards, Tibet and Nepal. India-wards, the Punjab, Rajputana, Central India, Bihar and Orissa.

        The Himalayan boundary of the United Provinces is our "second step of a stair" in the outline of India¾namely, (I) along the inner Himalayas from the source of the Jumna to the Kali or Sarda River; (2) down the Kali till it enters the plains; (3) thence along the Sub-Himalayas as far as the Gandak. The boundary on the west and south runs (I) down the Jumna to a point half-way between Delhi and Agra; (2) thence in an irregular line south of the Jumna and Ganges to Chapra.

        Points for the eye to remember. ¾(I) Jamnotri, the north-west corner; (2) the line of the Jumna; (3) the line of the Kali through the Himalayas; (4) Chapra, in Bihar.

        Physical Aspects.¾The United Provinces can be naturally divided into three regions.

        (I.) The Himalayan mountain region.

        (2.) The Vindhyan hill region south of the Ganges and Jumna.

        (3.) The great plain lying between them.

        I. The Himalayan Mountain Region.¾This consists of the three ranges of the Himalayas¾ namely, the Sub-Himalayas, here called the Siwaliks; the outer Himalayas, covered with great forests; and the inner Himalayas, with the mighty snow-clad peaks of Nanda Devi, Kamet, and Badrinath, all over 25,000 feet in height.

        2. The Vindhyan Hill Region.¾These hills consist of the Kaimur offshoots of the Vindhyas, which come down in terraces to the Jumna and Ganges. They are quite different from the Himalayas, as they are much lower, receiving only a small rainfall, and are covered with scrubby jungle. Here, owing to the heat and want of water, the trees are small; there are few animals, and scarcely any birds.

        3. The Great Plain.¾This occupies the great bulk of the province, and is one of the richest, best irrigated, and most highly cultivated regions of the earth. It may be divided into two parts: (I.) The Great Doab, or country between the Jumna and Ganges. This is a stretch of perfectly flat country, very fertile, and splendidly irrigated, bearing great crops of wheat, barley, sugar-cane, cotton, millets, indigo, and opium. The people are famous farmers. In some parts of the Doab, however, there are usar lands¾that is, patches made sterile by reh, a snow-like deposit of salt which comes to the surface after rain and destroys vegetable life. (2.) Oudh, Rohilkhand, and Gorakhpur. This region, comprising the rest of the plains, is also very fertile. It is damper, cooler, more wooded, and less troubled with reh. Being damper than the Doab, it grows more rice and less wheat.

        Mountains.¾The Garhwal Ranges of the Himalayas, on the spurs of which are the great peaks of Nanda Devi and Badrinath already mentioned. The Siwaliks, or Sub-Himalayas, 2,000 feet high, enclosing valleys called duns or doons.

        Rivers.¾In this province Mother Ganges meets most of her daughter streams. The chief feeders flowing from the Himalayas south-eastwards to the main river and those flowing north-eastwards from the table-land into the Jumna.

        Climate, Rainfall, Soil, & c.¾The climate on the whole is cooler and drier than that of Bengal, though in the hot weather the heat is fiercer in the plains. But there is a temperate climate in the cold weather. The rainfall is much less than that of Bengal. It is heavy on the outer Himalayas, but only about 40 inches over the middle of the provinces, and less than 30 inches south of the Ganges. The natural waterways are not so numerous as in Bengal, and irrigation canals have had to be dug, especially in the drier parts. The Ganges and Jumna are the feeders of the canals. The Ganges Canal from Hardwar to Cawnpore is navigable all the way, and is one of the greatest irrigation works in the world. As in the rest of the Gangetic Plain, the soil is alluvial, deep, and fertile; but parts of it are destroyed by reh.

        Productions.¾Owing to its rich alluvial soil, its good rainfall and many rivers, and the small area of mountains, this province has a larger cultivated acreage than any other, and is the chief food-growing district in India. Its main crops are wheat, barley, millets and pulses, and sugar-cane, but the output of oil-seeds is comparatively small. It is now practically the only province producing opium. Rice is largely grown in the river valleys, but the crop is smaller than that of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, Burma, or Madras with their rich delta lands. In the production of cotton it is beaten by the Central Provinces, Bombay, Madras, and the Punjab.

        Race, Language, and Religion ¾The people are of a mixed Aryo-Dravidian race. The Hindus number about 85 per cent, and the Mohammedans about 15 per cent. of the population. Hindi is the language mostly spoken.

        This is the most densely populated province in the Indian Empire, but it does not contain so many people as Bengal did before it was divided, nor as Bengal proper does now. The population is nearly fifty million. Owing to the number of towns, the percentage of the urban population is comparatively large. The population of the United Provinces decreased in 1901-21.

        Cities and Towns.¾The tract of country now covered by the United Provinces has been for many ages the most famous part of India. Before history was written it was the Madhyadesa or Middle Land described in the holy books and poems of the Hindus: in it are found the most sacred places in India, such as Benares, Kanauj, Hardwar, Muttra, and Ajodhya. It contains the birthplace of Buddha and is the cradle of his creed. In later times the Afghans and Moghals had here their capitals, Delhi and Agra. As this part of India has been for so long the centre of civilization, we naturally here find many towns, the capitals of former kingdoms and chiefships. There are also seven cities, a larger number than in any other province of India. The cities and towns are almost all on the Ganges or its tributaries, which in old times were the chief highways of trade. On the Ganges-Ghazipur, Benares, Mirzapur, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Kanauj, and Hardwar. On the Jumna¾ Agra and Muttra (Mathura). On the Ramganga ¾ Bareilly, Moradabad. In the Doab¾Meerut, Saharanpur, and Roorkee. In Oudh¾Lucknow (on the Gumti), Faizabad and Ajodhya (on the Gogra).

        Benares, (198,000), the largest city in the province outside of Oudh, is very old. From the earliest times of Aryan civilization a city has stood on the spot. Here the sacred Ganges turns northwards towards the Himalayas, the abode of Shiva, so that the city built on the sloping left bank forms a long line of temples and burning and bathing ghats facing the rising sun. The city is full of sacred spots, and places of pilgrimage. As the story of Delhi is the history of India, so the story of Benares, if it were ever written, would be the history of Hindu religion and philosophy. Calcutta is, or was, the capital of an Empire: Benares is the capital of a creed. Benares owes its wealth and importance to the thousands of wealthy pilgrims who come every year from all parts of India to the sacred city of Hinduism. Viewed from a boat in mid-stream the city with its gilded minarets and its crowds of pilgrims, bathing or praying beside the sacred stream, is very striking; but a walk through its narrow streets, filled with beggars, asses, and sacred bulls, is not so pleasant. The chief building is Aurangzeb's mosque, but to Hindus the sacred Golden Temple of Durga Kund is the most important. In Benares old industries, such as the manufacture of brass vessels, silk cloths, jewels, and toys, still flourish. It is, besides, the centre of a large fertile district, on a river crowded with boat and light steamer traffic; and now four lines of railway meet in the city.

        Cawnpore (216,000) is quite unlike Benares. It is a modern town, and owes its importance to modern manufactures. It was not heard of till the British got permission to quarter troops here after the battle of Buxar in 1764, and it only began its modern career after the annexation of Oudh. As Cawnpore is almost the only example of an inland town in India, which has, like those of Britain and America, grown to importance by the help of modern manufactures, it is interesting to study some of the causes of its rise and progress. In the first place, it stands on the Ganges and in the centre of the fertile Jumna-Ganges doab. Secondly, if we look at a good map we see that Cawnpore is the meeting-place of five of the principal railways of Upper India, which makes it a great centre for collecting and distributing the trade of the rich United Provinces. It was, in fact, the building of the railway bridge across the Jumna at Allahabad, joining Cawnpore with the cities of Bengal, that gave the town its first start as a focus for the export and import trade of the province. When this was done, many rich merchants of other towns on the Ganges transferred their business to it. These merchants were followed by large numbers of petty dealers, craftsmen, and tradesmen, who form such a large proportion of its population. At the present day it is, unlike most Indian towns, full of factories and workshops. Its industries depend chiefly on leather, cotton, and wool. There are plenty of cattle and goats in the country round about, and plenty of people of the Chamar caste to tan the skins. In this way Cawnpore has become the chief town in India for the making of harness, saddlery, boots and shoes. The cotton mills turn out all kinds of woven cotton goods, including tents. The wool mills make serge, flannel, blankets, and stockings. Besides these there are mills for cleaning and pressing cotton, a jute mill, a sugar refinery, a brush factory, a chemical work making sulphuric acid, soda, and writing inks, and an iron foundry. Here Government gets the tents, saddles, harness, sheeting, and blankets required for the Indian army. These things show us that Cawnpore is the largest and most important inland manufacturing town in the Indian Empire. Its trade and population have increased enormously in recent years. Its position, about 870 miles from Bombay and 630 from Calcutta, has made it a convenient distributing center for the import of piece goods, hardware, and machinery from both these ports.

        Agra (185,000), on the Jumna, is a city old in years, but it is drawing new life from trade and manufactures. Everywhere in the city is seen the hand of the great Moghal emperors. The town itself is handsome, and better built than any other in the province. Agra is a city of fine buildings. Akbar founded the city, and built the fort in 1566, and soon after began the Fatehpur Sikri palace and the Sikandra (where he lies buried), both at some distance from the city. Shah Jahan either built or finished the Moti Masjid, or Pearl Mosque, and the Jama, Masjid. But the finest building in Agra is the Taj Mahal, the " bubble in marble," which Shah Jahan built as a tomb for his wife. It is the finest piece of Mohammedan architecture in India, and perhaps the most beautiful building in the world. The history of the great Moghal Empire at its zenith can be read in the magnificent marble buildings within the red sandstone fort at Agra. In modern times Agra is renewing its youth, and increasing in wealth and population. It is the central grain market for a large district, has cotton mills, and leather and carpet works. It has also now become a great railway centre, being connected with Karachi and Bombay, and with the railway system of its own province. A branch of the Ganges Canal, and the Jumna also, bring in some traffic by water.

        Allahabad (157,000), the capital, has always owed its importance to its situation at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna. This confluence has made it both a sacred spot (the Prayag of the Hindus) and an important centre for river traffic. These two points of importance are illustrated by the Magh Mela or great religious fair, held in December and January every year, which attracts as many as 250,000 pilgrims and traders from all parts. It has thus always been an important city, but the fort and city as they now stand were built by Akbar. In modern times Allahabad is not noted for any great manufactures; it is rather the centre to which goods from all quarters of the province are sent in order, to be distributed over the country. Its chief importance nowadays is due to its central position in the railway system of India. It lies half-way between Calcutta and the Punjab, and through it passes most of the traffic between Bombay and the fertile Gangetic Plain. It is also the seat of the United Provinces Government, and of a University.

        Bareilly (129,000), in Rohilkhand, has always been a garrison city, round which a large civil population is gathered. It was so in the time of the Moghals, who quartered troops here for the defense of the eastern frontier of their empire; and in modern days it has a large cantonment of British and Indian troops, and is the headquarters of a division of the army. Commercially it is not important.

        Meerut (123,000), is at least as old as the times of Asoka, who erected, one of his pillars here. A hundred years ago it was " ruined, depopulated, and a place of no trade "; but, since it was selected as the quarters of a large garrison, it has increased in population and importance. Here the Mutiny broke out in May 1857.

        Lucknow (241,000), the former capital of the kingdom of Oudh, is now the capital of that province, and the seat of a University. It is full of mosques, tombs, palaces, temples, mansions, and gardens built by the Nawabs of Oudh and their nobles, but these cannot compare in beauty with the buildings of Agra and Delhi. Lucknow is a good example of a city built round the palace and fort of a ruler who spent the revenues of his kingdom on luxuries. The city is even now filled with workers in silver, gold, and ivory, makers of muslins, silks, and glasswork. In modern times it cannot keep pace with towns like Agra and Cawnpore, and its population is slowly decreasing. Its industries are of small importance, but it is a collecting and distributing center for the rich agricultural produce of Oudh.

        Other Towns.¾Hathras, in the Doab, is one of the chief trading towns in the province. Ghazipur, is the Government depot for opium. Mirzapur manufactures shellac, weaves carpets, and makes brass vessels. Kanauj, near Cawnpore, now in ruins and deserted by the Ganges, was a centre of ancient Aryan civilization. Hardwar, where the sacred Ganges enters the plains, is a place of pilgrimage. Muttra (Mathura) is an ancient sacred Hindu city with fine buildings. Moradabad has metal, brass, and tin manufactures on a small scale. Saharanpur is the headquarters of the Jumna Canal establishment. Roorkee, before the digging of the Ganges Canal, was a mere mud village; it is now a flourishing town, and the headquarters of the canal workshops. Here is the Thomason Civil Engineering College, the most important of its kind in India. Aligarh, north-east of Muttra, is famous for its Moslem University. Jhansi, on the narrow neck of British territory separating the two parts of Central India, is the meeting-place of four railway lines. Faizabad was the former capital of Oudh, till Asaf-ad-Daulah moved the court to Lucknow. Ajodhya, adjoining Faizabad, an ancient Hindu capital, is now in ruins.

        Hill Stations.¾Mussoorie, on the Himalayas, overlooking Dehra Dun valley beyond the Siwaliks; Naini Tal, on a lake in Kumaon; Chakrata, Landour, and Ranikhet.

        Industries.¾Cawnpore is the chief manufacturing centre of the United Provinces, where there are cotton and woolen mills, one small jute mill, and large leather works. There are breweries on the hills. There are many indigo factories, but they are not prosperous. Owning to the number of large towns in the province, there are many flourishing arts and crafts.

        RAJPUTANA.

        Rampur, a small state in Rohilkhand, which represents all that remains of the Rohilla Confederacy. Protection was promised to the state by the British after the Rohillas were defeated by the troops supplied by Warren Hastings to the Nawab Wazir of Oudh. The chief is a Mohammedan.

        Tehri, or native Garhwal, is high up in the Himalayas, round the sources of the Ganges. The state is mountainous, and therefore thinly populated. The ruling Rajput family was expelled by the Gurkhas in 1804, but at the end of the war the territory to the west of the Alaknanda was restored to the Raja.

        History.¾The territories obtained from the Nawab of Oudh in 1775, 1798, and 1801, and those won by Lord Lake from Sindhia of Gwalior in 1803, were originally attached to the province of Bengal under the name of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces. In 1816, by the Treaty of Sagauli, the districts of Kumaon, Garhwal, and Dehra Dun were taken from their Gurkha invaders and added to British territory. In 1836 the Ceded and Conquered Provinces, thus enlarged, were made into a separate province, called the North-Western Provinces. In 1856, the kingdom of Oudh was added to them by Lord Dalhousie, who at the same time deposed the king for continued misgovernment. After the Mutiny of 1857 Delhi, with the surrounding country, was taken from the province and attached to the Punjab, while a large slice of territory was at the same time transferred to the Central Provinces. In 1901, when the new North-West Frontier Province was formed, the name of the North-Western Provinces was, in order to avoid confusion, changed to the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.

        THE PUNJAB.

        The Punjab is a country of doabs and deserts.

        Shape.¾The Punjab resembles a huge W with its left leg longer than its right.

        Boundaries. ¾W. The North-West Frontier Province (beyond the Indus), and Baluchistan (beyond the Sulaimans). E. The United Provinces (beyond the Jumna), and Tibet (beyond the Himalayas). N. Kashmir. S. Rajputana.

        Points for the eye to remember.¾(I.) The point where the Kabul River enters the plains¾that is the north-west corner; (2.) a point on the Indus 100 miles below its junction with the Panjnad¾that is the south-west corner; (3.) a point on the Jumna half-way between Delhi and Agra¾ that is the south-east corner.

        Physical Aspects.¾The Punjab consists of three parts: (I.) the mountainous country in the north and north-east; (2.) a table-land in the north-west; (3.) the plains in the east and west.

        I. Mountain Region.¾In the north-east the Punjab Province runs far enough up among the Himalayas to include a part of each of their three ranges.

        2. The table-land lies north of the Salt Range and between the Indus and Jhelum. It is from 1,000 to 2,000 feet high, and is broken by ravines and nullahs.

        3. Plain Region.¾The rest of the country is a flat plain, most of it sloping very gently south-westwards in the direction of the flow of the rivers.

        (I.) Eastern Plains.¾These comprise all the plain country east of Lahore (in the right half of the W.) They make up the most fertile part of the province; besides being watered by the Sutlej, Ghaggar, and Jumna, they are splendidly irrigated, and have a greater rainfall than the western plains. Hence there is a large population, with many towns.

        (2.) Western Plains.¾The plains to the west of Lahore (in the left half of the W) have a fertile soil in some parts, but there is a want of rain. Cultivation is confined to a narrow strip along the riverbanks, and to the land irrigated by the flood canals of the Indus. In the south the country is little better than a desert. Hence the population is scanty, and Multan is the only large town.

        The plain region is made up of five doabs, and Sirhind, the Derajat, and Bahawalpur. Counting from west to east, these doabs are: (I.) the Sind-Sagar Doab, between the Indus and the Jhelum-Chenab; (2.) the Jech Doab, between the Jhelum and Chenab; (3.) the Rechna Doab, between the Ravi and Chenab; (4.) the Bari Doab, between the Beas and Ravi; (5.) the Jullundur Doab, between the Beas and Sutlej.

        The Derajat is the narrow strip between the Sulaimans and the Indus. The Sirhind Plain lies between the Sutlej and Jumna; here is the watershed between the Ganges and Indus river systems. Bahawalpur is an Indian state embracing the desert country of the Punjab south of the Sutlej, Panjnad, and Indus.

        Mountains.¾The Himalayas, in the north-east, running north-west to south-east. The Sulaimans, in the west, running nearly north and south. The Salt Range, in a curve, between the Jhelum and Indus.

        Rivers.¾These can be studied from the map. Though most useful for irrigation, the Five Rivers give no access to the sea, not being navigable by even medium-sized craft. They are really obstacles to commerce, and when they are in flood there is little traffic over them except by railway and road bridges. This is also true of the Indus.

        Climate.¾Owing to the dryness of the air the climate is one of extremes¾very hot in the summer months, cold and even frosty in the winter.

        Rainfall.¾The Punjab has two periods of rain¾ the monsoon from June to September, and the winter rains. The rainfall is, of course, greatest on the Himalayan slopes, and light elsewhere. In the left part of the W it is very light, and gets lighter as we go west.

        Waterways.¾Except the Indus and the Five Rivers (the "Punjab"), the province has no natural waterways. Hence it has to depend largely on irrigation canals. These are taken from the Five Rivers.

        Irrigation.¾The Punjab is the province where irrigation on the largest scale is carried on. No country in the world has such a magnificent system of canals. If we look at the irrigation map we shall see that nearly the whole cultivated area of the Punjab depends for its crops on artificial irrigation; for the Punjab Rivers have, on account of the very slight local rainfall, no small tributaries. The reasons why the Punjab is so suited for artificial irrigation by canals are;

        (I.) The Indus and its Punjab tributaries come from the snows and ice of the Himalayas, a storehouse of water, which never fails.

        (2.) These rivers are spread out over the whole province like the fingers of an open hand.

        (3.) The flat country and soft soil of the Punjab allow canals to be dug cheaply from these rivers.

        (4.) The alluvial soil, though thirsty, is rich, and therefore, if water can be brought to it, the cost of the canals can be soon repaid by large crops.

        The principal perennial canals in the Punjab are (I.) the Jhelum Canals; (2.) the Chenab Canals; (3.) the Bari Doab Canal ("Bari" is a compound of the two names Beas and Ravi); (4.) the Sirhind Canal; (5.) the Western Jumna Canal. Besides these, there are many small inundation canals, which draw off water from each of the Five Rivers, and from the Indus, when they are in flood during the hot weather.

        The irrigation works on the Punjab Rivers have naturally increased the productions and the population of certain districts. The area irrigated by the new canals is equal to the whole cultivated area of Egypt. In the Rechna Doab a piece of desert has been turned into a flourishing country with farms and villages into which people have immigrated. This is called the Chenab Colony. Lyallpur is its town.

        Soil and Productions.¾The Punjab being on the whole an alluvial plain, the soil is fertile; but in the south-west there are dry, sandy plains, and over the western half the want of rain makes much of the land useless for cultivation. Owing to its deficient rainfall the Punjab produces little in proportion to its large area. Its cold weather suits wheat and barley, which are largely grown. These, along with maize, pulses, and some paddy, are its main food crops. Good crops of cotton are also reaped, but not so large as those of the Central Provinces, Bombay, and Madras.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people of the Punjab are nearly pure Aryans in race. The Mohammedans outnumber the Hindus, and there are also many Sikhs. An Aryan language, Punjabi, is spoken.

        The Punjab, including the native states, has a population of over twenty-five million. It is thickest in the fertile districts of the north and east, and is very thin in the dry tract in the south-west. Owing to the poverty of much of the soil the percentage of rural population is comparatively low. The population of the Punjab decreased from 1901 to 1911.

        Cities and Towns.¾We have seen that the western half of the Punjab (the left half of the W) is partly desert, and much less fertile than the eastern half. There are, therefore, few towns in the western half, and these few are either military defense posts or centres of trans-frontier trade. There are two large cities in the fertile eastern half.

        Lahore (282,000) stands on the Ravi, near the centre of the province. When, at the close of the Sikh Wars, it came in the hands of the British, a great part of it was in ruins; but during the last thirty years it has been growing fast. Yet Lahore has few manufactures beyond the making of gold and silver lace, and a little cotton spinning. It is important as being the capital of the province, the seat of the Punjab University, and a railway distributing centre.

        Amritsar (160,000) means "lake of immortality." It is the holy city of the Sikhs, built round a sacred tank. It is, besides, a flourishing city with a large trade. Its position makes it the centre through which much of the Kashmir and Afghanistan trade with India passes. The chief manufactures are Kashmir shawls, made of goats' hair, and carpets.

        Other Towns. ¾I. Military Stations.¾ Till the North-West Frontier Province was formed in 1901, the Punjab was the frontier state next to Afghanistan. Hence it contains a large number of military stations where troops are held in readiness for the defense of India in the north-west. There are garrisons at Amritsar, and Mian Mir, near Lahore; also at Ambala, Ludhiana, and Jullundur, stations on the railway between Delhi and Lahore, and at Sialkot near the Kashmir boundary north of Lahore. In the north-west itself there are three important military posts¾ Rawal Pindi, Attock, with a fort guarding the railway bridge over the Indus, and Peshawar, which is now the capital of the new Frontier Province. Note that all those posts are connected by railway for the dispatch of troops and guns at a moment's notice. There are no large military stations in the south-west of the province, because from that side an attack is to be met at Quetta, the military outpost in Baluchistan.

        2. Trade Centres.¾These are (besides the three big cities) Ludhiana, near the Sutlej, a thriving place famed for its manufacture of Kashmir shawls, pashmina cloth, and turbans. Its position on the railway has also made it a great wheat mart. Multan, on the Chenab, dating back to the days of Alexander the Great, has always been one of the great trade centres of India, and is nowadays even more important owing to its position halfway down the Indus Valley Railway to Karachi. "The use of Multan as a trade centre seems to be to collect cotton, wheat, wool, oil-seeds, sugar, and indigo from the surrounding country, and to export them to the south; to receive fruits, drugs, raw silk, and spices from Kandahar traders, and to pass them on to the east. The Afghan traders take back indigo, European and country cotton cloth, sugar, and shoes." Dera Ghazi Khan and Kalabagh, on the Indus, are frontier-trading centres like Multan, but on a smaller scale.

        3. Hill Stations.¾Simla, the summer residence of the supreme Government, now reached by a railway from Ambala through Kalka, lies on the Himalayas south of the Sutlej; near it is Kasauli, where patients bitten by mad animals are sent to be cured. Dalhousie, in the north-east, and Dharmsala, in the Kangra valley (destroyed by an earthquake in 1905), are reached by the railway, which runs from Amritsar as far as Pathankot. Murree is reached by motor from Rawal Pindi.

        Industries.¾The mining of salt, the pressing, ginning, and weaving of cotton, the grinding of wheat, and the weaving of carpets (at Amritsar) are the chief industries of the Punjab.

        INDIAN STATES.

        Of these there are thirty-four.

        1. In the Eastern Plains.¾Six Sikh states, of which Patiala, Jind, and Nabha are the largest, and three smaller Mohammedan states make up this group. Patiala town has fine gardens and buildings.

        2. The Simla Hill States, twenty-three in number, occupy the lower ranges and valleys of the Himalayas. Twenty of them lie east of the Sutlej, and they were restored by the British to their Rajput chiefs in 1815, after the Gurkhas had overrun them. Of these Bashahr is the largest. To the west of the Sutlej lie three, of which Chamba in the north is the largest.

        3. The large Mohammedan state of Bahawalpur, in the south-west corner of the Punjab, lies along the Sutlej and Indus rivers.

        Note.¾The chiefs of the great Punjab States have always been famous for their loyalty. They furnish many of the Imperial Service troops, some of who served in China through the relief expedition of 1900. They offered men, horses, and money to help in the Transvaal War, and gave magnificent assistance during the Great War of 1914-18.

        History.¾The Punjab province really includes a good deal more territory than the land of the Five Rivers. It comprises (I) the Kingdom founded by Ranjit Singh, which as the result of the two Sikh Wars, was conquered and annexed by the British in 1849; (2) a tract east of the Sutlej, which had come under British authority in 1808; (3) Delhi and the surrounding country which were transferred to the Punjab from the North-Western Provinces after the Mutiny of 1857. In 1901 certain districts belong to the Punjab, including Peshawar, to the west of the Indus, were transferred to form part of the newly formed North-West Frontier Province. In 1911 Delhi was made the new capital of India. The city and its surroundings now form a small separate province.

        The province of Delhi was formed in 1912. Its area is 557 square miles, comprising the city and the surrounding territory.

        Delhi (304,000), On the Jumna, stands at the point which invading armies from the north-west, avoiding the desert, would naturally fix upon as their permanent camp, for it is the first place to be reached from which they could command the rich plains of the Ganges. Thus the position of Delhi explains why the fate of India has thrice been decided in its neighborhood¾ at Panipat. If a man were to write the story of Delhi, he would find when he had finished that he had written the history of India. Delhi is the greatest historical city in India. The present city is built on the ruins of several old Delhis, but its buildings date from the times of the great emperors Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. Delhi, the old Moghal capital, is still the city, which the people of India look upon as the capital of India, and here the Durbars of 1877, 1903, and 1911 were held. At the last of these the King Emperor proclaimed that Delhi, and no longer Calcutta, was to be the capital. Its central position makes it a much more suitable site than Calcutta. A New Delhi, with Parliament Houses, offices, hostels, and a University College has now been built south of the city walls. Like other old capitals, it has old court industries of gold and silver filigree work, muslin, wood and ivory carving, and shawl weaving; and to these it has added modern industries, such as cotton and flour mills, sugar mills, iron foundries, and brush-making. It is also a great centre of business, and it is the main market for trade between Calcutta or Bombay on the one hand, and Rajputana on the other. Its Chandni Chauk bazaar is the finest business street in India outside of Calcutta and Bombay. From Delhi lines of railway run out to the Punjab, the United Provinces, and Rajputana, and it is the center of the railway systems of North India.

        This province forms a small island of British territory in the centre of Rajputana. It is made up of two districts. Ajmer, the larger district, consists chiefly of an open sandy plain. Merwara, the smaller, is a hilly country, and cultivation can only be carried on in the valleys and openings between the hills. The rainfall is small and uncertain, and the population is less than five lakhs. Ajmer city, overlooked by the fortress of Taragarh, is the residence of the Agent for Rajputana.

        The Central Provinces consist of highland country, little known, covered with jungle and forest, with three fairly fertile valleys, one sloping westward along the Narbada, one southward along the Wardha and Wainganga to the Godavari, and one eastward along the Mahanadi and its feeders.

        Shape and Position.¾These can be understood only from the map. The outline of the Central Provinces is like a badly drawn map of India, the point where the Godavari leaves the province corresponding to Cape Comorin.

        Boundaries.¾N. Central India (eastern part). N.W. Central India (western part). S.W. Berar and Hyderabad. S.E. Madras. N.E. Bihar and Orissa.

        Points for the eye to remember.¾(I.) The line of the Wardha-Pranhita-Godavari, which divides the Central Provinces from Berar and Hyderabad in the south-west; (2.) the line of the Narbada where it separates the province from Central India (western part) in the north-west.

        Physical Aspects.¾In the Central Provinces the Vindhyas and Satpuras break up into detached ranges and rugged uplands. These are continued right across the northern half of the province to the highlands of Chota Nagpur in Bengal. Thus we have, in order, from north to south¾

        (I.) The table-land of the Vindhyas in the north, sloping north-wards to the Ganges valley; (2.) the narrow valley of the Narbada River, which flows westwards among rocks and waterfalls; (3.) the table-land of the Satpuras; (4.) the great Nagpur plain, stretching west and east across the middle of the province, and sloping partly south in the Wardha and Wainganga valleys, and partly east in the Chhatisgarh plain of the Mahanadi, (5.) in the south corner a wild, rugged country stretching along the left bank of the Godavari, i.e. the Bastar State.

        The Central Provinces, owing to their hills and heavy rainfall, are the birthplace of rivers. The Narbada and Tapti flow out to the west; the Wardha south-eastwards; the Wainganga and Indravati to the south; the Mahanadi to the east; the Ken and Son to the north. Nearly dry for most of the year, they are flooded in the monsoon.

        Rainfall, Soil, and Productions.¾" It may be said that no part of India is more free from fear of drought than the Central Provinces, where the rainfall has never been known to fail." It averages about 50 inches. There is little irrigation, and none from canals. The Central Provinces, like Assam, largely consist of hilly country, covered with forests and jungle. Only about one-third of the country is cultivated, chiefly in the river valleys; nearly half is uncultivable waste. In the valleys there is some rich, black soil producing rice and cotton. Oil-seeds, millets, and pulses are grown on the drier soils, and wheat as a winter crop. The Chhatisgarh plain, through which the Mahanadi flows, is the " land of the threshing-floors," and grows much rice and wheat.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people are Dravidians in race. Hinduism is the prevailing religion, but there are many Animists among the hill tribes. Hindi, Marathi, and a little Uriya are spoken, and the hill tribes speak Gondi, a Dravidian dialect. Owing to the large area of uncultivated and wasteland, the population is sparse, being thickest in the valleys where rice can grow best. There are few town-dwellers. The Satpura forests have been the refuge ground of aboriginal races.

        Towns.¾Nagpur (145,000), the old Maratha capital of the Bonsla Rajas is situated in the west, between the Wardha and Wainganga rivers. Its mills press, spin, and weave the cotton grown on the black soil lands of this province. It is a busy centre of increasing trade, and since the railway between Bombay and Calcutta was made through it, its population has largely increased, and it is now the seat of a University. Sitabaldi, a European station, is close to the town.

        Other Towns.¾Kamptee, nine miles along the railway line from Nagpur, is a modern town with a military cantonment and considerable trade. Jubbulpore (109,000), in the north, the junction of the Great Indian Peninsular line from Bombay and the East Indian from Allahabad, is one of the most important railway stations in India. Its population is increasing fast. Near it are the famous marble rocks on the Narbada. Saugor is a cantonment about 100 miles north-west of Jubbulpore. Burhanpur on the Tapti, at the point where it leaves the Central Provinces, was a former Mohammedan capital of the Deccan, but its manufactures of silk, muslin, and gold thread are now decayed. Raipur, in the Chhatisgarh plain, is an important centre of trade in lac, grain, and cotton, which has been increased by its position on the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Wardha, Hinganghat, Warora, and Chanda are all thriving trade towns in the Wardha valley. They are all joined by a branch railway line, which runs through a fine cotton country. Wardha and Hinganghat are famous for cotton growing and spinning; Warora has mines, which produce the finest coal in the Central Provinces; Chanda is in the midst of ironstone ores, but they are, as yet, but little worked.

        Hill Station.¾Pachmarhi, 3,500 feet above sea-level in the Mahadeo Range of the Satpuras, is the seat of the Government in the hot months.

        Industries.¾The development of industries in the Central Provinces is slow. The sole industries of importance are the spinning and weaving of the cotton grown in the valleys. There are two important coal-mines at Warora, and rich deposits of manganese.

        The Feudatory States are fifteen in number. Bastar, a mountainous region occupying the southern angle of the province, is by far the largest, but it is very thinly populated, and has resisted Hindu immigration.

        History.¾After the Pindari War in 1818, certain districts, known as the Saugor and Narbada Territories, were annexed by the British from Sindhia and the Bonsla Raja of Nagpur. At the same time the British undertook the administration of the rest of the Bonsla kingdom during the minority of Raghuji the Third. When he died childless in 1853, the Nagpur Territories " lapsed " to the Indian Government. In 1861 the Saugor and Narbada Territories, along with the Nagpur Territories were formed into a Chief Commissionership, under the name of the Central Provinces. In 1905, when the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam was formed, five Hindi-speaking native states in Chota Nagpur were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces. On the other hand, five Uriya-speaking states, in the eastern part of the Central Provinces bordering on Madras, were transferred to the Orissa division of what was then Bengal province.

        Berar.¾The cotton valley running east and west.

        Shape and Position.¾The outline of Berar is irregular, and can be best understood by studying the map. It is surrounded by the Central Provinces and Hyderabad, except for a short distance on the west where it touches Bombay.

        Boundaries.¾It is separated by the Wardha from the Central Provinces on the east, and by the Painganga (for a great distance) from Hyderabad on the south.

        Points for the eye to remember.¾(I.) The course of the Wardha and Painganga; (2.) their point of junction near Chanda.

        Physical Aspects.¾Berar is a broad valley lying between the Gawilgarh Range of the Satpuras on the north and the Ajanta Hills on the south. It is really an extension east-wards of the Khandesh valley of Bombay.

        Mountains.¾The Gawligarh Range and the Ajanta Hills run east and west.

        Rivers.¾The Purna, with many feeders from both ranges, drains the valley westwards into the Tapti. The Wardha and Painganga drain the upper, or eastern, end into the Godavari.

        Rainfall, Soil, and Productions.¾The rainfall is good; being between 30 and 40 inches in the valley; on the Gawilgarh Hills it is much more. The soil is the most important feature of Berar; its Valley is covered deep with rich, black soil, which is very fertile. Cotton, grown on the black soil, is the chief crop for export. Millets are the staple food crops. Wheat is grown as a winter crop.

        Berar is the " very home of the cotton plant," and takes second place for this fibre, being only beaten by Bombay, a much larger province. For its size, it is the greatest cotton growing country in India.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people of Berar are, like those of the Central Provinces, of Dravidian race, and mostly Hindus in religion. The language is Marathi.

        Towns.¾There are no large towns in Berar, and its population has decreased in recent years owing to plague.

        Amraoti, on a branch line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, is growing owing to its being a busy cotton centre, and so is Akola on the main line. Ellichpur, owing to its distance from the railway, is slowly declining in importance.

        Industries.¾In Berar the principal industries are the growing, ginning, pressing, spinning, and weaving of its chief product, cotton.

        History.¾Berar, or the Hyderabad Assigned Districts, has been under Empire administration since 1853. Under the treaty of that year the Indian Government undertook to maintain a military force, called the Hyderabad Contingent, for the protection of Hyderabad State. In order to provide for the upkeep of this force the Nizam assigned the Berar districts, while the Indian Government agreed to pay over to the Nizam all the surplus from the administration, after payment of the cost of the contingent. It was found, however, that the treaty provided too costly a system of administration for Berar, and that, in consequence, there was often no surplus at all. In 1902 a new arrangement was made by which the Nizam leased Berar in perpetuity to the Indian Government for a fixed rent of twenty-five lakhs of rupees a year, and the Indian Government was to administer the province as they deemed fit, and promised to make proper provision for the protection of the Nizam’s dominions. Berar is now attached to the Central Provinces for purposes of administration.

        Shape.¾The Presidency of Bombay is made up of a long strip of land, nowhere more than 300 miles broad, along the western seaboard. The northern half of this strip consists of the lower valley and delta of the Indus, and of the Cutch and Kathiawar Peninsulas; the southern half consists of a part of the west coast-strip, part of the Western Ghats, and part of the Deccan behind them.

        Boundaries.¾Landward¾ Baluchistan, the Punjab, Rajputana, Central India, Berar, Hyderabad, Mysore State, Madras. Seaward¾The Arabian Sea.

        Points for the eye to remember.¾(I.) Cape Monze¾that is the northernmost point of the coast; (2.) the boundary between Bombay and Madras¾that is the southernmost point of the coast; (3.) a point on the Indus 100 miles below its junction with the Panjnad¾that is the northernmost point of Sind; (4.) the north coast of the Rann of Cutch¾ that is the southern boundary of Sind.

        Physical Aspects.¾Bombay Presidency is a mixture of very different kinds of country. It may be divided into six regions, two north and four south of the Narbada.

        North of the Narbada: Sind and Gujarat.¾(I.) SIND lies between Baluchistan and the Rann of Cutch. Here the rainfall is very light¾in some places only 3 inches in the year. A great part of Sind is therefore little better than a flat, sandy desert, the only cultivation being along the banks of the Indus, where canals are dug to carry the water of the river, when in flood, on to the land. Sind is too flat for tanks to be made, but the Sukkur dam will irrigate a wide area.

        (2.) GUJARAT. This includes the peninsulas of Kathiawar and Cutch, and a broad strip of the mainland plain up to the mouth of the Luni. Gujarat consists of low-lying flat country. Near the Narbada it is very fertile, especially in the Gaekwar's territories, but as we go north the soil gets sandy, and the rainfall rapidly diminishes.

        South of the Narbada:¾the coast-strip, Khandesh, the Bombay Deccan, and the Bombay Carnatic.

        (I.) THE COAST-STRIP, between the base of the Western Ghats and the sea, extends from the Narbada down to the southernmost part of the presidency, and includes the North Konkan and South Konkan coasts, Goa (Portuguese), and North Kanara. It is a narrow coast plain, broken by numerous creeks and detached ranges of hills, but as the rainfall is very heavy, it has rich rice lands and coco-nut groves. The slopes, of the Ghats are covered with forests of teak and bamboo.

        (2.) KHANDESH¾a fertile tract with rich black soil (and therefore a great cotton producing district) extending east-wards from the Western Ghats and lying between the Malwa Ghats on the north and the Indhyadri and Ajanta Hills on the south and watered by the Tapti.

        (3.) BOMBAY DECCAN.¾This is the long strip of elevated table-land lying behind the Western Ghats, and extending from the Narbada to the Kistna. It is drained by the Tapti, the upper Godavari, and the tributaries of the Kistna, which have strips of fertile soil along their valleys. But, on the whole, as the Ghats keep off the moisture-bearing winds from the sea, the climate is very dry for eight months in the year, and the rainfall is uncertain. The tract is therefore almost treeless, and is covered with coarse grass, except where cultivated.

        (4.) BOMBAY CARNATIC.¾This is the part of the Deccan plateau, which lies south of the Kistna. The rainfall here is more certain, and the tract contains wide expanses of black cotton soil. Dharwar is the centre of a great cotton-growing district.

        Mountains.¾The KHIRTHAR RANGE, separating Sind from Baluchistan. Part of the SATPURA RANGE running eastward with the Rajpipla Hills as their western extremity. The AJANTA or INDHYADRI HILLS, also running eastwards south of the Tapli. The WESTERN GHATS, running south, parallel to the coast.

        Rivers.¾Bombay Presidency is too narrow to have more than the beginnings or the ends of large rivers. The Indus, Narbada, Tapti, Mahi, and Sabarmati reach the sea on the Bombay coast; the Godavari and Kistna, with its tributary the Bhima, rise behind the Ghats, and flow south-eastward.

        Lake.¾The most important natural feature is the Rann of Cutch, already described. It is rather a lagoon, or inland sea, than a lake.

        Climate, Soil, and Productions.¾Sind is almost rainless. It depends for cultivation on irrigation from the Indus, and is very hot in summer and cold in winter. Wheat and barley are its chief crops, and are, of course, grown in winter. In irrigated parts Sind also produces large crops of red rice. Egyptian cotton also has been introduced. Gujarat has a warm climate, not enough rain for much rice, and some fertile black cotton soil. Hence it grows cotton, millets, and pulses, and some winter wheat. The Bombay Deccan and Carnatic are too dry for rice. They have some black cotton soil (especially the Carnatic); so millets, pulses, and cotton are the chief crops. The Deccan also produces enormous quantities of wheat as a winter crop. The Konkan, or coast-strip, has a very heavy rainfall, and so grows two or three crops of rice, and is rich in coco-nut groves.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people are of mixed Dravidian and Scythian blood. In Bombay Presidency proper, the Hindus are to the Mohammedans as three to one; but in Sind they are only as one to three. Three Aryan languages¾Sindhi in Sind, Gujarati in the northern, and Marathi in the southern half of the province¾are spoken. Kanarese is the language of the Carnatic districts.

        'The desert of Sind and the Western Ghats take up a large part of the presidency, and the population is therefore sparser than that of most of the other large provinces. Bombay has suffered severely from plague in recent years. The many industrial towns have attracted a large number of people into them, and Bombay has a higher percentage of town-dwellers than any other province of India.

        The Parsis, of Persian origin and Zoroastrians in religion, are scattered chiefly over the districts of Broach and Surat. They are very intelligent and hard-working. Half a lakh of Pargis live in Bombay city.

        Cities and Towns.¾Bombay (1,176,000), the capital, on Bombay Island, now connected with the mainland, is an example of a great town, which has risen to importance by modern trade and manufactures. The island formed part of the dowry of Catharine of Braganza, the Infanta of Portugal, who married Charles the Second of England in 1661. The king transferred it to the East India Company, who in 1684 removed the seat of the presidency to it from Surat. Since then Bombay has increased in size and importance, till it is now the second city for population in India.

        Bombay owes its importance to its position on sea and land. On sea it has a magnificent harbour, protected by islands, where, the largest steamers can lie in safety even at the height of the monsoon. It is nearer Europe than any large Indian port except Karachi, and it is the centre through which most of the trade of India with Europe and Africa passes. On land Bombay is nearer the centre of India than any other port and therefore it draws traffic from a wider inland area than any other Indian sea-port. Railways now connect it with Gujarat, the Indo-Gangetic valley, the Deccan, and the Coromandel coast. Bombay is, besides, the great cotton centre of India. It lies close to the cotton-growing districts of Gujarat, Berar, and the Bombay Deccan, and it is the chief seat of the cotton spinning and weaving industry. One reason for this is that the damp sea-breezes favour the spinning and weaving of cotton. In places where the air is very dry the cotton fibres are apt to become over-twisted. Bombay Presidency spins about three-quarters of all the cotton yarn, and weaves more than three-quarters of all the cotton cloth made in India, and these are chiefly manufactured in the mills of Bombay city. Much of this yarn and cloth is shipped to African ports, the Straits, China, and Japan. Unlike Calcutta, Bombay has no coal-mines near it, but the electric power derived from the rainfall of the Ghats behind it is immense and is being increased.

        In former days, when the trade of Europe was carried round the Cape of Good Hope, Calcutta was practically as near to London as Bombay was, but, since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Bombay has been brought nearer to London than Calcutta is by several days’ steaming.

        Bombay lies on the coast-strip, cut off from the interior by the Western Ghats; but this disadvantage has been overcome by railways north-eastwards over the Thal Ghat, and south-eastwards over the Bhor Ghat, with the result that the trade importance of Bombay has enormously increased. Another line passing northwards along the coast through Surat, Baroda, and Ahmadabad, joins it to Agra and Delhi. It is the port for the dispatch and arrival of the weekly European mail. The city has some of the finest buildings in India, and is the seat of a University. In Bombay harbour is the island of Elephanta, with famous cave temples.

        Karachi (217,000), at the extreme west end of the Indus delta, is a good example of a modern town, which has sprung up into importance under British rule. It is neither an old capital nor the centre of manufactures. It only dates from 1843, when Sind was annexed, and it became the capital instead of Hyderabad. But during the last forty years, owing to the opening of the Indus Valley Railway and the great increase of irrigation in the Punjab, Karachi has made an enormous advance. Its population, for example, has more than doubled during that time, and it is already the fifth seaport of India and Burma, and will probably soon beat Madras for fourth place.

        The reasons for the importance of Karachi are¾

        (I.) It has a good natural harbour, which has been greatly improved, and which admits the largest ocean steamers.

        (2.) It is the sea-outlet for the trade of the Indus valley North-West Frontier.

        (3.) It is the nearest Indian port to Europe.

        (4.) It is the harbour from which troops from England can be most quickly sent to the North-West Frontier in case of invasion. It will likely become an airway station.

        Karachi is the great port for shipping the wheat crops of the Punjab to all parts of the world. After a good wheat-harvest, Karachi harbour can scarcely hold the steamers waiting for cargoes to Europe. The disadvantage of Karachi lies in the fact that behind it stretches a comparatively barren and poor country, and the Indus scarcely helps it at all: it has only become important since the railway connected it with the more fertile and irrigated districts, beyond the deserts of Sind and Rajputana. It can therefore never, as a seaport, hope to rival Calcutta, which is the sea-outlet for one of the most fertile valleys in the world.

        Ahmadabad (274,000), on the Sabarmati, was the capital of the Mohammedan state of Gujarat, and, three hundred years ago, was one of the most splendid cities of India, manufacturing articles made of silk, cotton, silver, gold, steel, and wood, required at the court of a great capital. According to the old saying, " the prosperity of Ahmadabad hangs on three threads¾ silk, gold, and cotton." In modern times these manufactures have somewhat declined, though they still support a large part of the population. But in addition to them, there are now steam mills for spinning yarn and weaving cotton, besides leather and paper-making works. Ahmadabad is also an important railway centre of the "Garden of Bombay." Its size and population are therefore rapidly increasing. It contains over sixty cotton mills.

        Surat (117,000), on the Tapti, was, one hundred and fifty years ago, the pilgrim port for Mecca, the chief export and import centre of India, and probably it’s most populous city. It was the first English settlement, and a great cotton port. In modern times its population has gone down, and its sea-trade has passed to Bombay.

        Poona (215,000), the ancient capital of the Maratha Peshwas, and the seat of the Bombay Government during the rainy weather, stands above the Ghats, 1,800 feet above sea level, in the Bombay Deccan. It is a large military station, and a Brahmin educational centre.

        Baroda (94,000), the capital of Baroda State and of the Gaekwar of Baroda's dominions, east of the head of the gulf, is the second city of Gujarat and the third in the Presidency. It is a good example of an old Maratha capital, with a palace and gardens, an arena for elephant fights, the houses of bankers and jewellers (who formerly lived on the expenditure of the court), a mass of mean and over-crowded houses, and many Hindu temples. In recent times modern buildings, such as the State Library, public offices, hospitals, and the Baroda College, have been built. Baroda has few modern industries, and during the last twenty years its population has decreased.

        Other Towns.

        (I.) On the Gulf of Cambay.¾Daman (Portuguese), Broach (near the mouth of the Narbada), Bhaunagar, Cambay (in Cambay State, at the head of the gulf), Diu (Portuguese), are, like Surat, ports which have seen better days, and are now only suitable for small craft owing to the silting up of the gulf caused by strong currents and tides. Dholera, formerly a cotton mart, is now several miles inland owing to the silting up of the Gulf.

        (2.) Inland from the Gulf.¾Dhulia is the chief town in Khandesh district; Rajkot has a celebrated college for the education of sons of the Kathiawar chiefs. Bhuj, now reached by a railway, is the capital of Cutch State.

        (3.) On the Konkan coast.¾Marmagao (Portuguese) and Karwar (protected by some islets) have good harbours, but they cannot compete with Bombay, and have lost much of their trade importance.

        (4.) In the Deccan.¾Ahmadnagar and Bijapur are capitals of old Mohammedan kingdoms, which became independent. Bhusawal, owing to its position on the Tapti and at the junction of two main railway lines, is a place of growing trade.

        (5.) In the Bombay Carnatic.¾Sholapur (120,000), Hubli, and Dharwar are thriving towns engaged in growing or manufacturing the cotton for which this part of the country is famous. Dharwar has gold mines on an extension of the reefs worked at Kolar in Mysore State. Belgaum is also a cotton town, and a military station.

        (6.) On the Ghats.¾Mahabaleshwar, a hill station 4,500 feet above sea-level on the Western Ghats, is extremely wet and damp during the south-west monsoon, but is a favourite resort of Europeans in September and October. Nasik on a spur of the Ghats is a rising sanatorium, and, owing to its proximity to the source of the Godavari, is an important place of pilgrimage.

        (7.) In Sind.¾Sind has been a part of the Bombay Presidency since 1843, but it is not connected with it geographically, The desert of Thar and the Ranns of Cutch separate it from its presidency, and by railway it can as yet only be reached from Bombay by a very long and roundabout route through Rajputana. Hence its communications with Bombay and the south are all by sea through Karachi. Owing to the scanty rainfall in Sind, and the desert nature of much of the country, the population is thin, and there are but few towns. Karachi is the modern capital. Hyderabad, the capital of Sind till 1844, stands at the head of the Indus delta, is the centre on which roads and railways converge, and has a considerable trade. Six miles to the north is Miani, where Sir Charles Napier in 1843 defeated the Baluchis, and so brought the country under British rule. Shikarpur, in upper Sind, is, like Multan, the starting-point of a trade route (through the Bolan Pass) to Afghanistan and Persia. It is important as being one of the few towns in India, which have grown up, and thriven on commerce alone. Sukkur on the right bank, Rohri on, the left bank of the Indus, and Bukkur on an island in midstream, are important as commanding the railway bridge which connects Baluchistan with the rest of India. Jacobabad, on the frontier, is the hottest place in India.

        Industries.¾The cotton mill industry is by far the most important in Bombay. The people of the presidency also make paper, silk, gold and silver embroidery (in Gujarat and Sind), and dye cloth.

        Indian States.¾These states, exclusive of Baroda, which is under the direct control of the Government of India, occupy more than a third of the presidency of Bombay, and number in all three hundred and sixty-three separate chiefships, but most of them are very small.

        1. In Sind. KHAIRPUR, on the left bank of the Indus, stretching eastward into the Rajputana desert, is the largest Indian state in Bombay, and is ruled by a descendant of the Mirs, who reigned in Sind up to its annexation by the British in 1843. It is not fertile, and so is thinly populated, but it has greatly advanced, during the last ten years.

        2. In Gujarat. CUTCH STATE is practically an island cut off between the sea and the Rann of Cutch. To its capital, Bhuj, a railway now runs. KATHIAWAR STATES.¾The Kathiawar Peninsula "teems with native chiefs," most of them Hindus, but a few Mohammedan. There are one hundred and eighty-eight separate chiefships. The young chiefs are educated at the Rajkot College. CAMBAY, at the head of Cambay Gulf, is a small state. The other states in Gujarat are grouped round the PALANPUR, MAHI KANTHA, REWA KANTHA, and SURAT AGENCIES.

        3. In the coast-strip of North and South Konkan. JANJIRA and SAVANTVADI are the chief states.

        4. In the Bombay Deccan. The largest state is that of BHOR. The SATARA JAGIRS, which were originally under the Raja of Satara, passed under the suzerainty of the British when the Raja of Satara died without heirs and his state "lapsed" in 1849.

        5. In the Bombay Carnatic. There are several Maratha states, of which KOLHAPUR is the largest. The Raja of Kolhapur is a descendant of Sivaji.

        History.¾The first English factory in India was founded at Surat in 16l3. In 1668 Charles the Second transferred to the Company the island of Bombay, which he had received as part of the dowry of his wife, Catharine of Braganza. By the treaty of Salbai, at the end of the first Maratha War, in 1782, four islands, including Salsette and Elephanta, were handed over to the British by the Marathas. The treaty of Bassein in 1802, and the second Maratha War which immediately followed it, resulted in the acquisition by the British of the districts of Surat, Broach, and Kaira, and the establishment of their influence in Gujarat. By the third Maratha War, which ended in the final downfall of the Peshwa, the greater part of the present area of Bombay Presidency was acquired by the annexation of the Bombay Konkan, Deccan, and Carnatic districts. In 1843 the province of Sind was conquered and annexed by Sir Charles Napier. In 1839 the small but important settlement of Aden, in Arabia, was captured by two British men-of-war, and it is now the centre of a fairly large protectorate, including Perim, administered by a Resident, subordinate to the Governor of Bombay. In 1862 the district of North Kanara, on the coast, was transferred from Madras to Bombay.

        Shape.¾If we cut off the end of the peninsula by a sloping line drawn from the Chilka Lake, along the Kistna and Tungabhadra, to the southernmost part of the Bombay Presidency on the opposite coast, and then cut out Mysore State and Coorg, we have the Madras Presidency.

        Boundaries.¾North of this line lie, in order, Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces, Hyderabad, Bombay. On all other sides lies the sea.

        Points for the eye to remember.¾(I.) The Chilka Lake; (2.) the line of the Kistna-Tungabhadra; (3.) the southernmost point of the Bombay Presidency on the west coast; (4.) the Nilgiri Hills, where the Eastern and Western Ghats meet.

        Physical Aspects:¾I. The East Coast Plain.¾On the east coast from Lake Chilka to Cape Comorin there is a long tract of plain country running back from the sea to the line of the Ghats. It includes the deltas of the Godavari, Kistna, and Kavari. The northern part, between the Kistna delta and Chilka Lake, is called the Northern Circars. The southern part, which is much broader, and extends from the Kistna delta to Cape Comorin, is the Carnatic. The eastern coast of the Madras Presidency is the Coromandel Coast.

        2. The West Coast-strip.¾The Western Ghats run down the west coast to Cape Comorin, and leave a narrow strip between them and the sea. This is the Malabar Coast, and is a continuation of the Konkan of Bombay.

        3. Madras Deccan.¾Behind the Eastern Ghats (and lying between them, the Kistna, and Mysore State) is a small bit of the Deccan table-land called the Ceded Districts.

        Mountains.¾The high range of the Western Ghats runs right down the western coast to Cape Comorin. At the point where they are met by the Eastern Ghats, they rise to over 7,000 feet in the grass-covered NILGIRI HILLS (Blue Mountains), of which the highest peak is DODABETTA, 8,640 feet. Just south of the Nilgiris is a break in the Ghats called the PALGHAT GAP, which forms a pass between Malabar and the Carnatic, only 1,000 feet high and over 20 miles broad. South of the Gap the Western Ghats rise again into the high range of the ANAIMALAIS (Elephant Mountains), the loftiest peak of which, ANAIMUDI, 8,840 feet, is the highest point of Southern India. Still farther south the Western Ghats, here called the Cardamom Mountains, broaden out into the SERUMALAIS and, PALNI HILLS.

        The Eastern Ghats are really a continuation of the Chota Nagpur highlands. They run roughly parallel to the coast till nearly opposite Madras, where they slope inland to meet the Western Ghats in the Nilgiris. They give off some broken ranges, of which the NAGARI HILLS, near Madras, and the SHEVAROYS, near Salem, are the best known.

        Rivers.¾These are the GODAVARI, KISTNA, NORTH PENNER, PALAR, SOUTH PENNER, KAVARI, VAIGAI, TAMBRAPARNI. They have been described under the rivers of the Deccan. The Godavari and Kistna are Madras rivers only for the last part of their course. These two rivers, along with the Kavari, are by far the most important on account of their fertile deltas. None of the rivers in Madras are of any value for navigation, though the Godavari has boat traffic in the wet season.

        Lagoons.¾The KOLAR LAKE lies between the deltas of the Godavari and Kistna, and is connected with the sea by a tidal creek. PULICAT LAKE, a stretch of shallow, brackish water, connected with the sea and the Buckingham Canal, lies north of Madras town, and is of little commercial importance.

        West Coast Backwaters.¾On the Malabar and Travancore coasts there are long shallow lagoons connected with the sea by channels. They extend along the coast for over 260 miles, and are much used for boat and canoe traffic, which here consists of coco-nuts, copra, coir, spices, teak, and rice.

        Islands.¾The LACCADIVE ISLANDS are not geographically connected with India or Madras, but they are under the Collector of Malabar District. RAMESWARAM ISLAND, separated from the mainland by Pambam Passage, is famous for a Hindu temple.

        Climate and Rainfall.¾Madras, being situated in the southern part of the peninsula, has a very hot climate, and can produce all the crops grown in India, except wheat and barley, which thrive best in the cold weather of Northern India. The Travancore and Malabar Coast gets the full benefit of the summer monsoon. There rain never fails, and two or three crops are reaped. The Northern Circars look for most of their rain to the summer monsoon. The Carnatic receives its chief rainfall in the winter monsoon, but gets showers in July, August, and September sufficient to prepare the ground and start the crops. The Ceded Districts in the Deccan get very little rain from either monsoon, and often suffer from drought.

        Products of the Plains.¾Rice requires much water, and so is grown¾(I.) in the Godavari, Kistna, and Kavari deltas; (2.) on the west coast, where the rainfall is over 100 inches; and (3.) under tanks throughout the Presidency, where water can be stored in hollows of the ground. The Madras Presidency is pock-marked with tanks. Millets (cholam and kambu), ragi, and pulses grow where there is not enough irrigation for rice; indigo, sugarcane, spices, and oil-seeds (especially gingelly and ground-nuts) on good soil; cotton is grown chiefly on the black cotton soils of Tinnevelly, Coimbatore, and Bellary; tobacco in the Madura and Coimbatore districts, and in the " lankas " or islands on the Godavari. Jute is beginning to be cultivated in the Northern Circars.

        Of the Hills.¾Tea on the Nilgiris, Anaimalais, and Palnis; coffee on the lower ridges of the Western Ghats, in the Nilgiris and Shevaroys, the Wynaad, and Travancore; cinchona on the Nilgiris; pepper, cardamoms, teak, ebony, and sandal-wood on the Western Ghats, especially on the Travancore part of them.

        Of the Seashore.¾Coco-nuts, which like moisture and a smell of the sea, are common all along the coast, especially on the south and west facing the south-west monsoon.

        Of the Sea.¾The channel between the southern coast and Ceylon is shallow, sandy, and but little disturbed by storms. It is therefore very suitable for the growth of the oyster shell-fish, from which pearls are obtained. Pearl-fishing is a thriving industry on the shores of the Manaar Gulf.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people are of Dravidian race, and speak Dravidian languages¾ namely, Tamil in the south, Telugu in the north, and Malayalam on the west coast. Nearly nine persons out of ten are Hindus; there are comparatively few Mohammedans, for this part of India was never permanently occupied by them. Madras, including its native states, contains nearly two-thirds of all the Christians in India. The population is dense, especially in the east coast deltas and in Malabar, but not so dense as in Bengal and the United Provinces.

        Cities and Towns.¾The chief centres of population in Madras Presidency are either on the coast or on the fertile areas irrigated by the Godavari, Kistna, and Kavari rivers and by the Periyar scheme.

        Madras (527,000) is the third largest city in India. It was founded in 1639 when the East India Company obtained a grant of land on which a fort and factory were built. Round this grew the business part of Madras ("Black Town," now called George Town in memory of the visit of George, Prince of Wales, in 1906) and several villages now connected with it by roads and streets. For this reason, and because it has plenty of room to expand, Madras is less crowded than Bombay or Calcutta, and this explains why it has been called " the city of magnificent distances." In modern times it has become the terminus of four railway lines (to Bombay, Tuticorin, Calicut, and Calcutta); a harbour has been built, and the Buckingham Navigation Canal connects it with Bezwada and the Kistna delta. Though the third city of India in size and importance, Madras cannot compare with Bombay or Calcutta as an industrial or trade centre. In the first place, its harbour is not a storm-proof shelter for ships, and is apt to silt up; secondly, it has to compete against many small seaports on both the Coromandel and Malabar coasts: even the raw cotton, tea, coffee, spices, and ground-nuts of the Madras Presidency are largely shipped from other ports in it. Thus Madras is quite unlike Calcutta, Rangoon, or Karachi, which, by their geographical position at the sea-outlet of great valleys, have almost a monopoly of the export and import trade of their provinces. Thirdly, Madras has not, like Calcutta, Bombay, or Karachi a province behind it, which produces large quantities of the things which foreign countries want, such as wheat, jute, cotton, opium, and rice: nor is it a city which manufactures, on a large scale, cotton yarns and cloth (like Bombay), or jute (like Calcutta). It is not surprising, therefore, that Only some 5 per cent of the foreign trade of India passes through Madras and that it is being beaten by the much younger seaports of Karachi and Rangoon. At these places and at Bombay the harbour has been the parent of the town, but at Madras the town has been the parent of the harbour. This harbour has, however, been recently improved and a new entrance made facing away from the sand-bearing current. The city is important because it is the capital of a large Presidency, the seat of a University, and a distributing centre of trade. Two finely equipped mills spin and weave cotton.

        Madura (139,000), on the Vaigai, one of the oldest towns of South India, was the capital of the ancient Pandyan kingdom. It is also a great religious centre. The great temple, with its " hall of a thousand pillars," elaborately carved, is the chief building. Thus " from time immemorial Madura has been both the political and religious capital of the extreme south." Madura has several small industries, such as the making of brass vessels and turban cloths. Its population has more than doubled during the last forty years, owing to the improvement in the district produced by the Periyar irrigation scheme.

        Trichinopoly (120,000), on the south bank of the Kavari and at the head of its delta, is an important railway centre. Its rock, nearly 300 feet high and crowned with a small shrine, is a landmark for miles. The town is built round the rock, and is famous for swami silver work, and the manufacture of the well-known " Trichinopoly cheroots." Quite close to the town is the celebrated Vishnu temple of Srirangam on an island in the Kavari.

        Other Towns: Inland.¾Tanjore, in the Kavari delta, is the centre of a rich rice country. It is an old capital with a famous temple and jewellery manufactures. Salem, at the foot of the Shevaroys, is an important agricultural centre, formerly celebrated for iron mines now no longer worked. Bezwada, at the head of the Kistna delta, is a railway junction and a thriving town. Bellary, in the Madras Deccan, is a military station. Dindigul (famous for a cigar factory) and Tinnevelly are on the railway to Tuticorin, south of Trichinopoly. Coimbatore, near the foot of the Nilgiris, on a branch line, is an agricultural centre, with a Government farm and a college of agriculture and another of forestry.

            Coast Towns¾This province has a longer coast than any other, and there are many small ports. Not one of them has a real sheltered harbour, but a few can take in small sailing vessels in fair weather. Owing to the shoal water along both coasts, ocean steamers must anchor some miles off shore, and cargo is taken to and from them in boats. On the east, from north to south, we pass in turn Calingapatam, Bimlipatam, Vizagapatam, Cocanada, Masulipatam, Pondicherry (French), Caddalore, Negapatam, Dhanushkodi, and Tuticorin. It is proposed to build a harbour at Vizagapatam like that at Madras, able to hold and shelter steamers of deep draught. Vessels have to lie some six miles off Cocanada, which is the chief sea-gate of the rich Godavari and Kistna deltas. From Pondicherry French steamers export ground-nuts and take them to Marseilles, the chief oil-making town of France. Negapatam is the port of the Kavari delta. From it steamers trade with Rangoon and the Straits Settlements. Dhanushkodi, on Pambam Island, is the new ferry port for passenger traffic with Ceylon. Much of the goods traffic passes through Tuticorin. On the west, sailing northwards, we pass Quilon and Alleppey (in Travancore State), Cochin, Beypore, Calicut, Tellicherry, Caunanore, and Mangalore. These ship the coco-nuts, copra, coir, pepper, of the coast-strip, and the coffee, tea, cardamoms, and teak of the Ghats to Bombay, Colombo, and Europe. Cochin, helped by backwaters, is the chief Malabar port. Here a fine harbour is to be made. Calicut, where Vasco da Gama, landed in 1498, is another busy port. The railway from Madras, through the Palghat Gap, here strikes the west coast. Its terminus is at Mangalore, which ships coffee, rice, and some teak.

        Temple Towns¾The Carnatic coast was less ravaged by Mohammedans than the rest of India, and that is why so many fine specimens of Hindu temples are to be found here. The whole of the Carnatic between Madras and Tuticorin is a country of Hindu temples. Those of Madura, Trichinopoly, Tanjore, are the most famous, but Conjeeveram (Kanchi), Chidambaram, Kumbakonam, Rameswaram (on the island of that name), and many other smaller places, are visited by crowds of pilgrims every year. Being temple towns, they are Brahmin, and therefore educational, centres. On the seashore at Mahabalipur, a day’s sail down the Buckingham Canal south of Madras, are the famous Seven Pagodas, solid rock-cut temples with Sanskrit inscriptions. They are now quite deserted.

        Hill Stations.¾Ootacamund, Coonoor, and Wellington, on the Nilgiris: Kodaikanal, on the Palnais; Yercaud, on the Shevaroys.

        Ootacamund ("Ooty") is the finest hill station in India. It lies over 7,000 feet above sea-level, and enjoys a temperate climate. In December and January water freezes over-night. It is the summer residence of the Governor in the hot season. Coonoor has a cordite factory worked by a mountain waterfall, and a hospital for patient’s bitten by mad dogs. Wellington is a sanatorium for soldiers. Kodaikanal has an observatory for the study of sun-spots.

        Historical Towns.¾Madras, Trichinopoly, Arcot (70 miles inland from Madras), Pondicherry, Fort St. David (in ruins), near Cuddalore, are famous for their sieges during the wars of Clive and the French. The field of Wandiwash lies near Conjeeveram. On the right bank of the Tungabhadra, in Bellary district, can still be seen the magnificent ruins of Vijayanagar, the old Hindu capital, whose rajahs made war on the sultans of the Deccan.

        Industries.¾Madras has many industries. The preparation of cotton (pressing, spinning, and weaving), indigo, oil, tobacco, rice (husking), leather (tanning), and sugar are the main ones. The making of salt and the curing of fish also employ many hands. Handloom weaving is the most important domestic industry, but it is declining.

        Indian States.¾These consist of two important territories, Travancore and Cochin, on the west coast, and three small chiefships isolated amid Indian territory¾namely, Puddukottai, Banganapalle, and Sandur.

        Travancore occupies the southernmost part of the wet Malabar coast between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats. It consists of (I.) a fertile strip of flat coast intersected by backwaters, where rice and coco-nuts are the chief crops; (2.) a hilly region inland, where teak, cardamoms, pepper, and coffee are largely grown. In Travancore, which has always been cut off from the rest of India by the Western Ghats, and which boasts that it has never been under Mohammedan rule, the old customs of Hinduism still remain unbroken, and caste rules are very strictly kept. It has been connected with the rest of the mainland by a line joining Quilon with Tinnevelly on the South Indian Railway. The state is well governed, and a large proportion of the people are educated. There are many native Christians.

        Towns.¾Trivandrum, the capital and largest town, trebled its population in the years 1881-1921. It is an example of a town, which has grown round a sacred shrine and the fort and palace of its ruler. A railway now joins it with Quilon.

        Quilon, formerly one of the chief ports of the west coast, may revive, as it is now the sea-gate of the railway from Tinnevelly. Alleppey is the chief port of Travancore and a depot for forest produce, especially coir.

        Cochin, a smaller state to the north of Travancore, has also a coast-strip and a mountainous interior, with a climate and productions like Travancore¾teak and ebony in the hill forests, rice and coco-nuts on the flat coast. A branch line from Ernakulam now meets the Madras Railway, which runs from Madras to Calicut, through the Palghat Gap. Cochin is like Travancore, a well-governed state, with a large educated population.

        Towns.¾The capital is Ernakulam, on a backwater. Cochin, the chief town and seaport, forms part of the Malabar District of Madras, and was acquired from the Dutch in 1795.

        Note.¾All along this coast the coco-nut palm grows abundantly. The trade of these states therefore chiefly consists of its products, viz., copra, coir, coir-mats, nuts, and oil. From the hills come tea, pepper, cardamoms, teak, and coffee. More than half the trade is carried by backwaters to Cochin town, which some day may have a fine harbour.

        PUDDUKOTTAI lies near Trichinopoly. BANGANPALLE and SANDUR are in the Ceded Districts.

        History.¾The first bit of territory in the presidency acquired by the Company was the site of Fort St. George in Madras city, which was obtained from a petty raja in 1639. In 1763 the tract of country round Madras (now Chingleput District) was granted by the Nawab of the Carnatic. In 1765 the Northern Circars, comprising all the coast-strip north of the Kistna delta (the present districts of Ganjam, Vizagapatam, Godavari, and Kistna), were ceded to the Company by Shah Alam at the same time as he granted them the diwani of Bengal. In 1792, at the close of the third Mysore War, Tippu Sultan gave up the districts of Malabar, Salem, and part of Madura. In 1799, after the last Mysore War, the Company took the west coast-strip of Kanara, Coimbatore, and the Nilgiris. In the same year the Raja of Tanjore resigned his territories, and in 1800 the Ceded Districts of Anantapur, Kurnool, Bellary, and Cuddapah were " ceded " by the Nizam to pay for the upkeep of a subsidiary force. Lastly, in 1801, the Nawab of the Carnatic resigned the remainder of his vast territories, extending from the Kistna to near Cape Comorin, into the hands of the Company. In 1862 the northern half of Kanara (North Kanara District) was transferred to the Bombay Presidency.

        COORG.

        Coorg is a small state lying to the south-west of Mysore, and forming a very rugged and hilly part of the Mysore plateau. The chief town, MERCARA, little more than a village, is nearly 4,000 feet above sea-level. The climate resembles that of Mysore, but the rainfall is much heavier. Rice is cultivated in the narrow valleys, and coffee and cardamoms on the hills. One-third of its area consists of forests. The people are a fine race of hardy mountaineers.

        History.¾In 1834 the Raja of Coorg, who had been treating his subjects most cruelly, was deposed, and the state was, by the unanimous wish of the people, taken under Indian administration, and is now Empire territory. The state, along with the military station of Bangalore in Mysore, is administered by the Resident in Mysore.

        THE ANDAMANS.

        The Andamans.¾The Andaman Islands, together with the Nicobars, lie on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically they belong to Burma: politically they are separated from it, and are administered by a Chief Commissioner.

        The Andamans consist of two groups, the Great and the Little Andamans. Port Blair, the settlement to which convicts from India used to be sent, is on the South Island of the Great Andamans. The aborigines are Negritos, a very black and woolly-haired race of short stature, quite uncivilised. The Nicobar group, consisting of eighteen islands, is inhabited by Malays of Mongolian race. The population of the Andamans and Nicobars is about a quarter of a lakh.

INDIAN FEUDATORY STATES

        Shape.¾Rajputana resembles a roughly-drawn square with its corners corresponding to the four points of the compass. Its southeastern side is a very broken line.

        The point N. almost touches the Sutlej. The point E. almost touches the Jumna. The point S. almost touches the Vindhyas. The point W. is in the Great Desert.

        Note.¾(I.) The middle point of WS touches the Rann of Cutch where the Luni River flows into it; (2.) the Chambal leaves Rajputana at the point E; (3.) the lines WN and NE correspond to the two legs of the Punjab W.

        Boundaries.¾N.E. The Punjab and United Provinces. S.E. Central India. S.W. Bombay (Gujarat and Sind). N.W. Sind and the Punjab.

        Physical Aspects.¾Rajputana consists of two unequal parts separated from each other by the Aravalli Mountains, which run across the country from the south-west to the north-east.

        I. The part north-west of the Aravallis takes up three-fifths of the country, and, being untouched by the monsoon, is sandy, ill-watered, and unproductive. It becomes worse as we get farther from the Aravallis, and the western borders next Sind and the Punjab end in the Great Desert of THAR.

        2. The smaller section (two-fifths) south-east of the Aravallis, is higher and more fertile. It consists of the western part of the Malwa plateau, is much better watered, being drained by the Chambal and its feeders, and slopes down to the valley of the Jumna.

        Mountains.¾The ARAVALLIS are the only mountains in Rajputana. They begin in Mount Abu (5,650 feet), on the south-west border, and stretch in a distinct range up to Ajmer; after which they are lower and more broken, but can be traced up to the famous " Ridge " under the walls of Delhi in the Punjab.

        The MAHI HILLS run south-east from the southern end of the Aravallis to the Vindhyas.

        Rivers.¾(I.) In the north-western section the LUNI is the only river, draining the western slopes of the Aravallis into the Rann of Cutch. (2.) In the south-eastern section the table-land is drained by the CHAMBAL and its feeders (the BANAS left bank, KALI-SIND and PARBATI right bank) from the Vindhyas into the Jumna, The SABARMATI and MAHI drain the south-eastern corner into the Gulf of Cambay.

        Lake.¾SAMBHAR LAKE, near Jaipur, is a shallow salt lake from which thousands of tons of salt are manufactured yearly. As the lake has no outlet, the sun evaporates the water, and leaves the salt behind.

        Rainfall.¾Rajputana on the whole gets very little rain, and that little is uncertain. The part west of the Aravallis becomes drier as we go west into the desert, where only 5 inches fall in the year. In the part east of the Aravallis the rainfall increases as we go east, from 20 to 30 inches.

        Waterways, Irrigation, Soil, and Productions.¾(I.) In the north-western half the Luni is the only river; it is salt, and nearly dry except in the rains. There are few tanks, and wells have sometimes to be dug 300 feet down before water is reached. The soil is poor, and there are great tracts of sand. Hence, in this half, only a single scanty crop can be grown—namely, millets, in the better part of the desert land, and wheat or barley as a winter crop on the banks of the Luni. The people here, therefore, live by pasturing herds of cattle, sheep, and camels, moving about from place to place in search of fodder.

        (2.) In the southeastern half the country is more fertile, has a greater rainfall, and is better watered by rivers and tanks. Two crops can be grown—namely, millets or oil-seeds in the autumn, wheat or barley in the winter. In favoured places sugar-cane, cotton, and opium are grown. On the whole Rajputana is a poor agricultural country, and is often visited by famine.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The Rajputs are nearly pure Aryans; almost all of them are Hindus, speaking Rajasthani, an Aryan language. Rajputana, especially the part to the west of the Aravallis, is little cultivated, and the population on the whole is sparse. Owing to the number of the towns and the poverty of the soil, the percentage of town-dwellers is large.

        Towns.¾In Rajputana the state takes the name of the capital, and the capital takes the name of the chief who founded it. The towns resemble each other. They are the places to which the Rajput chiefs retreated when their power in Northern India was broken by the Mohammedan invasions. They are therefore all (except Jaipur) built on sites suited for defence or refuge, usually a rocky ridge or small hill. Here the chief would build a fort, with a palace and pleasure gardens near it, and fence in his followers in the town by a strong, thick wall. There is an abundance of fine building stone and marble in Rajputana, and hence the towns, both from their position and the materials of which they are built, have a very striking and picturesque appearance. These towns have but little trade, and are maintained by the expenditure of the courts of the chiefs and their nobles. The large towns are capitals of states of the same name. Jaipur, Udaipur, Alwar, Ajmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, and Jodhpur are all examples of this type of city.

        Jaipur (120,000), in the north-east, is one of the finest Hindu cities in India. It is surrounded by hills crowned with forts, with the palace in the middle. It is the centre of banking firms and of trade between Delhi, Agra, and Rajputana. Near it is the deserted city of Amber, the ancient capital.

        Ajmer (British), a walled city on a plateau of the Aravallis, has two famous colleges (one of them the well-known Mayo College for Rajput chiefs), and is the residence of the British Agent. It is the capital of the small British province of Ajmer-Merwara.

        Udaipur is one of the most picturesque cities in India, with a granite and marble palace. Jaisalmor, Bikaner, and Jodhpur lie out on the Rajputana desert to the west. Tonk (the capital of a Mohammedan state), Kotah, and Bundi lie on the Banas-Chambal plateau. Bharatpur, on the north-east frontier, is famous for the sieges of its fort by Lord Lake in 1803, and Lord Combermere in 1827. Dholpur, on the Chambal, in the east, is the capital of a Jat state. Chitor has a famous fortress, and was formerly the capital of Udaipur. Mount Abu, 3,945 feet above sea-level, at the southern end of the Aravallis, has a sanatorium, and some fine marble temples built by the Jains.

        History.¾Rajputana is the country where the Rajputs found refuge when driven out of Hindustan by the Mohammedans. It comprises twenty states, with the small Indian district of Ajmer-Merwara in the middle. After the third Maratha War Lord Hastings carried out the pacification of Central India and Rajputana. In 1818 most of the Rajput chiefs entered into subsidiary treaties with the Indian Government, by which they agreed to accept Indian protection and pay tribute. The chief states are Udaipur (or Mewar), Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Karauli, Bundi, Tonk, Kotah, and Jhalawar. Bharatpur and Dholpur are Jat states, and Tonk is Mohammedan. The rulers of all the other are Rajputs.

        Udaipur, the parent state, occupies a hilly table-land at the southern end of the Aravallis. The Rana belongs to a family which ranks first among the Rajputs of all India, and which boasts that it has never given a daughter in marriage to an Emperor of Delhi.

        Jodhpur, to the north-west of the Aravallis, is much the largest state, though not the most populous, as the country is barren.

        Jaisalmer and Bikaner, in the extreme west, are large states in the desert part of Rajputana; they occupy the most thinly populated tract in all India.

        Jaipur, partly in western and partly in eastern Rajputana, lies on both sides of the Northern Aravallis. Though not the largest, it is the most populous state in Rajputana.

        The other states of Alwar, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Karauli, Bundi, Tonk, Kotah, and Jhalawar are much smaller, and lie in eastern Rajputana, in the country watered by the Chambal and its tributaries. In the midst of these states lies the small British district of Ajmer-Merwara. It is under a Chief Commissioner who is, at the same time, Agent to the Governor-General for Rajputana. Several of the chiefs of Rajputana served as officers and sent troops to fight in the Great War (1914-1918).

        Central India, or the Central India Agency, consists of a large number of Indian states grouped into nine Political Agencies, under the Agent-General to the Governor-General. The Agent-General resides at Indore.

        Position, Shape, and Boundaries.¾It is impossible to understand the position and outline of this part of India except by a careful study of the map. Its shape is, roughly, a long triangle, with the line of the Vindhyas and the Son as hypotenuse, the Chambal as one side, and the Jumna and Ganges as the other.

        Note.¾(I.) This triangle is only a very rough way of remembering the outline. (2.) No part of Central India actually touches the Jumna or Ganges.

        The whole tract is divided into two parts by a narrow neck of the United Provinces, which separates the larger or western half (Central India proper) from the smaller or eastern half (Bundelkhand and Bagelkhand).

        I. The western part comprises the eastern half of the Malwa plateau (Rajputana east of the Aravallis being the other half lying between the Chambal and Betwa, and sloping north-east from the Vindhyas to the Jumna valley.

        Its natural boundaries are therefore¾S. The Vindhyas, separating it from the Central Provinces. W. The Chambal, separating it from Rajputana. E. The Betwa, separating it from the "neck" formed by the United Provinces. N. The Jumna vally, separating it from the United Provinces.

        Note.¾(I.) In the south-west corner the boundary goes beyond the Vindhyas, across the Narbada valley, and over the Satpuras. (2.) The triangle of land between the Chambal and Parbati (the Kotah and Jhalawar States) belongs to Rajputana.

        2. The eastern part¾Bundelkhand and Bagelkhand¾comprises the thin part of the triangle sloping northward towards the Jumna and Ganges valleys.

        Boundaries.¾The eastern part is surrounded by the United Provinces lying on the north, east, and west, and by the Central Provinces on the south.

        Physical Aspects.¾Central India forms part of the hilly table-land watered by the right-bank tributaries of the Jumna and by the Son and sloping down to the Jumna and Ganges valleys.

        Mountains.¾(I.) Western half. The VINDHYAS run near the southern border, the highest peaks (2,500 feet) overlooking the Narbada valley, 1,700 feet below, on the south. The SATPURAS (only for 100 miles) occupy the south-west corner, rising to 3,000 feet, and in one peak to over 5,400 feet. Part of the MAHI HILLS runs from the south end of the Aravallis to the Vindhyas.

        (2.) Eastern half. The KAIMUR RANGE, a continuation of the Vindhyas along the left bank of the Son.

        Rivers.¾(I.) Western half. The CHAMBAL (with its rightbank feeders the Kali-Sind and Parbati), the SIND, and BETWA, all draining the country from the Vindhyas into the Jumna. The NARBADA. Central India includes about 100 miles of this river and its valley between the Vindhyas and the Satpuras.

        (2.) Eastern half. The DHASAN, the KEN, TONS, and SON flow across the slope on their way to the Jumna and Ganges.

        Rainfall, Waterways, and Productions.¾The rainfall is good, being about 30 to 40 inches in the western, and 40 to 50 inches in the eastern, half. Central India is well drained by the eight rivers above-mentioned and their feeders, but they are but little used for irrigation. The Son canals are in Bihar. The soil is rich, and well cultivated. Central India produces the usual millets, pulses, and rice; wheat in the cold weather, cotton, and sugar-cane.

        The Malwa plateau, in the western half, is especially famous for opium and tobacco.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people are mostly of Dravidian stock. Hinduism is the prevailing religion, and Hindi the prevailing language. Nearly a quarter of the population is made up of aboriginal tribes, Gonds and Bhils, in the Satpura Hills. These are largely Animists, and speak Dravidian dialects.

        Towns.¾WESTERN DIVISION (Central India proper). 

        In Gwalior State.¾Gwalior (89,000), the capital and centre of the Maharajah Sindia's dominions, is the largest town in Central India. It is famous for its rock fortress, a mile and a half long and 340 feet high; for its old palace, one of the best specimens of early Hindu architecture in India; and for its Jain temples. It is the centre of an important stone-carving industry.

        Ujjain, in a detached part of Gwalior, north of Indore, is one of the most sacred cities of Hinduism. It was formerly the capital of Malwa.

        Bhilsa, on the Betwa, is noted for its tobacco. Near it are temples and Buddhist topes, among which the Sanchi tope is the most famous.

        Nimach (Neemuch), near the border of Rajputana, on the railway half-way between Indore and Ajmer, is a military station.

        In Indore State.¾Indore, the capital, the centre of the Maharajah Holkar's territories and the residence of the Agent-General of Central India, lies north of the Vindhyas, 1,800 feet above sea-level, on the railway which strikes off to Ajmer from the Great Indian Peninsula line. Near it is MHOW, the largest military station in Central India.

        In Bhopal State.¾Bhopal, the capital, 1,700 feet above sea-level, is an important railway junction.

        EASTERN DIVISION.

        In Panna State.¾Panna, the capital, a well-built city, was formerly famous for diamonds, which were dug up near it.

        In Rewah State.¾Rawah, the capital, north of the Kaimurs, is the largest town in Bagelkhand. At Umaria, in this state, is an important coal-mine.

        History.¾Central India is simply the name given to a group of states placed under the charge of the Agent to the Governor-General. After the Pindari or third Maratha War, when the Peshwa was dethroned and his claims of suzerainty passed to the British, the pacification of Central India was entrusted to Sir John Malcolm. His policy was to recognise all existing rights of the chiefs to territory and tribute, and to place them under the guarantee of the British Government. This explains why the geography of Central India is so confused, why some states are scattered about in detached portions, and why some of the larger states receive tribute from the smaller ones. Central India contains some one hundred and fifty states, of which Indore and Bhopal in the western half, and Panna and Rewah in the eastern half, are the largest. The states are grouped into agencies, the chief of which are Gwalior, Indore, Bhopal, and Western Malwa in the west, and Bagelkhand and Bundelkhand in the east. Several of the chiefs of these states with their troops served in the Great War.

        HYDERABAD.

        Hyderabad is the heart of the Deccan.

        Shape.¾Hyderabad is, roughly, shaped like a diamond plus a triangle in the south-west corner.

        Boundaries.¾The boundaries of Hyderabad can be best understood by studying carefully the course of the Godavari and Kistna and their tributaries. The state lies between the Godavari and its big left-bank tributaries on the one side, and the Kistna and its big right-bank tributary on the other.

        In the north the Painganga separates the state from Berar. In the north-east the line of the Pranhita-Godavari separates the state front the Central Provinces. In the south the line of the Tungabhadra-Kistna and the Eastern Ghats separate the state from Madras. In the west the state is bounded by Bombay.

        Points for the eye to remember.¾The courses of the Godavari and Kistna, and the points where their big tributaries join them.

        Physical Aspects.¾Hyderabad is a table-land averaging about 1,250 feet above sea-level, and sloping nearly north-west to south-east in the direction of the flow of the rivers. The table-land is made up of plains crossed by river valleys with ranges of hills here and there.

        Mountains.¾The Balaghat Range runs between the Godavari and its feeder, the Manjira.

        Rivers.¾The Godavari and Kistna and some of their tributaries. The GODAVARI enters Hyderabad at the most westerly point of the "diamond," and flows eastwards across the northern half of the state. Feeders: the DUDNA, PURNA, and PRANHITA on left bank; the MANJIRA on the right. The PAINGANGA, a feeder of the Wardha, forms the boundary for some distance between Hyderabad and Berar. The KISTNA, with its left-bank feeder the BHIMA and its right-bank feeder the TUNGABHADRA, occupies the triangle on the south-west corner of the state outside the " diamond."

        Rainfall and Productions.¾Hyderabad has a moderate rainfall of about 30 inches, most of which falls in the summer monsoon. The numerous rivers naturally irrigate a large part of the state, and their valleys are well cultivated. There are also many tanks, but there are no canals. On the whole Hyderabad is not a very fertile country; it has too little rain, and but little artificial irrigation. The black soil in the north-west, peopled by Marathi-speakers, grows wheat and cotton: in the south-east the soil is sandy, and rice and millets are the chief crops. Here the people speak Telugu. Coal is mined at Singareni, near Warangal, and there are cotton mills in the cotton-growing districts.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people are mostly Dravidians, and almost all Hindus, speaking Marathi, Kanarese, and Telugu. The state is not very fertile, and therefore the population is thin.

        Towns.¾The history of Hyderabad is seen in its towns and villages. It is the part of India where the influence of settled government has always been least felt. The state itself became independent of the Moghal Empire, and in its territories are remains of several old independent kingdoms. It is the country where the Mohammedans and Marathas fought for supremacy, and where the Pindari bands roamed and robbed. The marks of former struggles are to be seen everywhere. Almost every town is an old independent capital, and all are protected by walls or fortresses. Even the villages have usually small forts, to which, in troubled times, the inhabitants could retire and defend themselves. There are no great centres of modern industry.

        Hyderabad (404,000), the capital of the largest Indian state and the fourth most populous city in India, stands on the Moosi, a tributary of the Kistna, 2,000 feet above sea-level. It is a fine example of an old Mohammedan capital with palaces, mosques, and bazaars surrounded by a wall and inhabited by a mixed population from all parts of India besides Turks, Arabs, Pathans, and Persians. Four lines of railway radiate from the city. One runs west to Wadi junction on the main line between Bombay and Madras; another eastwards to Warangal and then south-eastwards across the Ghats to Bezwada junction where the Madras-Calcutta line crosses the Kistna. A third goes north-westwards through the state past Aurangabad to a junction on the main line, from Bombay to Allahabad. A fourth runs southwards to the Kistna at Kurnool. Hyderabad city is the centre of a good deal of trade, but there are few manufactures. It is the seat of the Osmania University, and has several colleges, schools, and hospitals.

        Hyderabad in its geographical situation, its history, and its everyday life may be contrasted with a city such as Rangoon.

        Hyderabad is (I.) in the middle of a thinly-populated table-land. (2.) An old court capital, the inhabitants of which are mostly soldiers and " followers "of the palace. (3.) Not closely connected with the rest of the world: is not even on a main line of railway.

        Rangoon is (I.) on the sea-coast and near a rich delta. (2.) A modern commercial capital full of merchants, traders, and immigrants attracted by business, (3.) On a world's highway and the gateway of a rich interior.

        If India and Burma were newly discovered countries, a large town would be sure to spring up in a few years on the Rangoon River; but no one nowadays would think of building a large town where Hyderabad stands.

        Secunderabad, six miles off, is one of the largest military cantonments in India.

        Old Capitals.¾Golconda, seven miles to the west is an old capital, formerly famous for its trade in diamonds. Gulbarga, farther west, and Bidar, to the north-west, are old Brahmani capitals. Aurangabad, in the north-west corner, is the old capital of Malik Ambar. Near it is Daulatabad, or Deogarh, an ancient Hindu stronghold. Warangal, to the north-east of Hyderabad, was the capital of the ancient Hindu kingdom of Telingana. These are all typical towns of the Deccan.

        In the north-west corner of the state two villages, Ellora and Ajanta, are famous for rock-cut temples of Jain, Buddhist, and Brahmanical art. Near them lies Assaye, where, in 1803, General Wellesley (afterwards the Duke of Wellington) defeated the Marathas.

        History.¾The dynasty of the Nizam and the kingdom of Hyderabad were both established by Asaf Jah, a Turkoman general of the Moghal emperor Aurangzeb. In 1713 he was appointed Subadar or Governor of the Deccan, with the title of Nizam-ul-Mulk (Regulator of the State). As the Moghal Empire, after the death of Aurangzeb, was, owing to internal quarrels and the attacks of the Marathas, tottering to its fall, Asaf Jah easily asserted his independence, and at the time of his death, in 1748, he was firmly established in it, with a kingdom roughly the same as the present state. The title of Nizam has become hereditary in his family. The relations of the state with the Indian Government are regulated by a series of treaties, of which the first was made in 1759, and the last in 1902. For his magnificent services to the Empire in the Great War, the present Nizam received the unique title of His Exalted Highness.

        Mysore is a table-land, the southernmost and highest part of the Deccan, wedged in between the converging Eastern and Western Ghats.

        Shape.¾Mysore is roughly triangular in shape, with its vertex pointing south.

        Boundaries.¾It is surrounded on all sides by the Madras Presidency, except on the north-west, where it is bounded by the Bombay Presidency. For 70 miles on the south-west it touches the small province of Coorg.

        Physical Aspects, Mountains, Rivers, &c.¾Mysore is an undulating table-land, over 2,000 feet above sea-level, and flanked east and west by the ranges of the Eastern and Western Ghats, which send down spurs on either side. It is famous for high hills called " droogs," rising singly above the level of the table-land. These were formerly the favourite spots on which forts were built.

        Water-parting.¾Running east and west across the state is a high ridge (3,000 feet), which divides the drainage of the country, one half going north into the Kistna and North Penner, and the other south into the Kavari.

        Malnad and Maidan.¾The people of Mysore also divide their country into the high rugged uplands of the Western Ghats (the Malnad), and the undulating and more level plains stretching eastward (the Maidan).

        Rivers.¾From the high land of Mysore rivers flow in nearly all directions, except to the westward, where the high barrier of the Western Ghats prevents them.

        Northward.¾The TUNGA and BHADRA (forming the Tungabhadra) and the VEDAVATI into the Kistna. The NORTH PENNER.

        Eastward.¾The PALAR and SOUTH PENNER.

        Southward.¾The KAVARI and its feeders.

        Rainfall, Waterways, and Productions.¾In the Western Ghats the rainfall is very heavy, but in the Maidan it is only moderate about 30 inches. Mysore is, however, well supplied with rivers, and tanks are numerous. The Kavari is used to irrigate a great tract of rich country, and has many anicuts across it. Millets (especially ragi), oil-seeds, areca and coco-nut palms, and sandal-wood all over the Maidan; sugar-cane and rice in the irrigated valleys; cotton in the black soil of the north; coffee, cinchona (a little), teak, and cardamoms on the Ghats are the chief productions.

        Note.¾Ragi is the great crop of Mysore, and is the staple food of the people. It is a hardy plant, not requiring much rain, and growing nearly everywhere. Coffee is said to have been first planted on the Baba Budan spur of the Western Ghats by a Mohammedan pilgrim who brought the seed from Mecca.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The people of Mysore are Dravidians in race, but there is a mixture of Scythian blood among the inhabitants of the western districts. The percentage of Hindus (92) is higher than that of any province or state in India. Kanarese is the language of the state.

        Towns.¾Bangalore (237,000), in the south-east, 3,100 feet above sea-level, is the only city in the State. It is an important military cantonment and railway centre, the headquarters of the Mysore Government and of its University. A kind of granite is quarried in abundance in the neighbourhood, and, in consequence, some of the public and private buildings, notably the Maharajah's palace, are very fine structures. Owing to its elevation, and its exposure to both monsoons. Bangalore has one of the pleasantest climates in India. It is a place of considerable trade, with cotton and woollen mills, and carpet manufactures. Mulberry trees are widely grown and silk-weaving is an important industry. Another is the preparation of sandal-wood oil.

        Mysore, the capital of the state, some 100 miles south-west of Bangalore, but not so high, with a fort and a splendid new palace, is a much smaller town with some good modern buildings. For its size it is one of the finest towns in India.

        Seringapatam, on an island in the Kavari, ten miles from Mysore, is famous as the old stronghold of Hyder Ali and of his son Tippu, who fell at the capture of the fort in 1799.

        Kolar, on a branch of the railway from Madras to Bangalore, is celebrated throughout India for its gold mines, which yield about 95 per cent of this metal produced in India (value of yearly output about 21/2 crores of rupees). The rock containing the gold is crushed by machinery driven by electricity, which is generated by the Sivasamudram Falls of the Kavari, nearly 100 miles distant, and is conveyed to the mines by wires.

        History.¾The present ruling family of Mysore traces its descent from a Hindu chieftain, the Wodeyar of Mysore, who rose to power early in the seventeenth century. From about 1760 to 1799 Mysore was ruled by a Mohammedan usurper, Hyder Ali and his son Tippu. On the latter's death at the capture of Seringapatam in 1799, the British Government restored the Hindu dynasty. In 1831 insurrections broke out in parts of the state, and the administration was taken over by the Indian Government, but it was handed back in 1881 to the adopted son of the former maharajah. Since then the state has prospered greatly and has advanced in agriculture, industry, and commerce.

        Baroda is an Indian state in Gujarat, in Bombay Presidency. The state consists of four distinct blocks called prants, separated from one another by large tracts of British or other territory. The state is well governed under the present enlightened Gaekwar, and has made much progress in railway extension and education. In a small part of Baroda State the experiment of compulsory education of boys and girls has been tried, no fees being charged, and attendance at school being enforced by means of fines. This is the only part of India where such an experiment has been made.

        Chief Town.¾Baroda. (See under Bombay Presidency.)

        History.¾Early in the eighteenth century a Maratha soldier of fortune, whose family name was Gaekwar or "Cowherd," rose to power. When the Moghal Empire fell to pieces, his descendants extended their authority over all Gujarat. The territories of the Gaekwar of Baroda at the present day cover part of the fertile plain of Gujarat, and are much intermixed with surrounding Bombay districts. The Gaekwar is bound by subsidiary treaties made with the Indian Government.

FRONTIER INDIA.

        Introductory.¾The northwest part of Frontier India is far the most important of its border-lands, as it is the only side on which India can be open to invasion. The best way to remember it is to think of the north-west boundary of India from the Arabian Sea to the Hindu Kush not as a line, but as a belt of territory, outside of India proper, which the Indian Government has occupied to ward off invasion.

        I. The first or southern part of this belt consists of Baluchistan. Native Baluchistan lies west of the Khirthar Mountains and British Baluchistan west of the Sulaimans. Between these two ranges is the Kachhi desert, leading from the Indus valley into the heart of British Baluchistan. Up this valley runs the railway to Quetta, the forts of which command the Bolan Pass from the north.

        2. The second part of the belt, between the north of Baluchistan and the Hindu Kush, consists of a broad strip of tribal territory now known as the North-West Frontier Province, consisting of four parts:¾

        (I.) The Derajat Frontier, from the Gomal River to the Kurram valley, including the Tochi and Wana agencies, inhabited by the Waziri tribes.

        (2.) The Kurram Valley, which has been British territory since 1892.

        (3.) The Peshawar Frontier, extending from the Kurram valley northwards across the Kabul right up to Kashmir and including the Tirah country, south of the Safed Koh, the Mohmand country farther north, and the Bajaur, Dir, Swat, and Buner districts, which lie in the valleys of the Panjkora, Swat, and Upper Indus.

        (4.) Chitral, farther north still, comprising the Chitral valley, on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush a native state feudatory to Kashmir, but under the control of the Chief Commissioner of the North-West Frontier Province.

        Another way to remember the geography of this part of Frontier India is to clearly fix the valleys and rivers.

        These are: (I.) The Kachhi valley, leading through British Baluchistan from the Indus; (2.) the Gomal with its tributary the Zhob; (3.) the Kurram and its feeder the Tochi; (4.) the Kabul, flowing into the Indus at Attock; (5.) the Kabul tributaries, the Chitral or Kunar, the Panjkora, and the Swat.

        Still another way is to have a clear idea of the chief passes:

        (I.) The Bolan and Harnai Passes, guarded by Quetta; (2.) the Gomal Pass; (3.) the Tochi Pass; (4.) the Kurram Pass, called the Peiwar Kotal, over the Safed Koh; (5.) the Khyber Pass, commanded by Peshawar; (6.) the Malakand Pass, commanded by the new railway line from Naushahra (Nowshera) to Dargai; (7.) the Barogil and Dorah Passes, on the Hindu Kush.

        The Frontier Policy of the Government of India.¾

        The North-West Frontier Province was formed for the better protection of India against invasion. By this means three important objects are gained:¾ (I.) Troops are concentrated at certain important points within easy reach of the main passes; (2.) the tribes are not interfered with except when interference is necessary, and they are entrusted with the maintenance of peace within their own territories; (3.) the traffic in arms and ammunition across the frontier is regulated.

        In 1904 the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, said: " India is like a fortress, with the sea as a moat on two sides, and mountains [the Himalayas and their offshoots] on the third. Beyond the walls is a glacis [Frontier India] of varying breadth and dimensions. We do not want to occupy it, but we cannot afford to see it occupied by a foe. We are quite content that it should remain in the hands of allies and friends; but if unfriendly influences creep up and lodge under our walls, we are compelled to intervene, because danger would thereby grow up and menace our security."

        As we shall see, the north-west parts of Frontier India, i.e. Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province, are not only mountainous and therefore difficult for an enemy to cross, but they have very little cultivation, so that an enemy must bring all the food and fodder for his army with him. This increases the difficulties of an invader enormously.

        Baluchistan is a large province, outside of India proper, lying west of the lower half of the Indus.

        Shape.¾Its shape is irregular and can only be learned from the map.

        Boundaries.¾N. Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province (from which it is separated by the Gomal). W. Persia. S. Arabian Sea. E. The Punjab (across the Sulaimans), and Sind (across the Khirthar Mountains).

        Physical Aspects.¾Baluchistan forms an eastern part of the great Iranian table-land. It is very mountainous, and those parts, which are not mountainous, are desert. The highest mountains are round the two towns, Quetta and Kalat. The Khirthar Mountains, on the east, separate the southern half of Baluchistan from Sind, and the Sulaimans, separate the northern half from the Punjab. Between these two ranges is the Kachhi, or desert, which stretches from the Indus valley into the heart of the country and cuts it nearly in two. The only rivers of any importance are the Zhob, which flows into the Gomal in the north, and the Puriali, which enters the sea less than 50 miles from Karachi.

        Climate and Productions.¾Baluchistan, being outside the influence of the monsoons, is nearly rainless. Owing to its elevation, the dryness of the air, and the direction of the mountain ranges, Baluchistan has a very severe winter. A large part of it being desert, cultivation is carried on by irrigation. (The water is conveyed in underground channels.) Wheat, millets, and the date fruit, none of which require much moisture, are the chief crops. The population is, of course, very thin, and though Baluchistan is the fourth largest province of the Indian Empire, it has only five lakhs of inhabitants¾less than the population of Madras city. The people of Baluchistan have a proverb, " When God made the world He left the rubbish in Baluchistan."

        The province is made up of two parts¾namely, (I.) British Baluchistan, which is a part of the Empire under a Chief Commissioner, and comprises certain districts ceded by Afghanistan by the treaty of Gandamak in 1879; (2.) Native Baluchistan, the larger part, most of which belongs to the Khan of Kalat, but certain parts¾for example, the Bolan Pass and the Northern Frontier¾ are directly administered by the Indian Government.

        Towns.¾With such a sparse population there can be only a few towns. The people are mostly shepherds and small farmers.

        Quetta, 5,500 feet above sea-level, in a valley among high mountains, is the chief station of British Baluchistan. Its importance is altogether due to its position as a frontier garrison post. It guards the northern or Afghan entrance to the Bolan Pass, which leads into the Indus valley. It is therefore very strongly fortified, and is connected with the Indus valley railway by two lines¾one through the Bolan Pass, and the other through the Harnai Pass¾which meet at Sibi. This line has been carried beyond Quetta to Chaman on the Afghan frontier, overlooking the plains of Kandahar. Quetta is also a place of some trade, being the starting-place of caravan routes to Kandahar and the Seistan district of Afghanistan. Along this latter route a railway line has been made over the mountains as far as Nushki, in northern Baluchistan. It has now been taken up to the Persian border.

        Kalat (6,500 feet), nearly 100 miles south of Quetta, is the fortress of the Khan of Kalat, the head of the Baluchi clans.

        Shape and Position.¾The North-West Frontier Province consists of a long strip of mountainous country, about 100 miles broad, stretching to the west of that part of the Indus which lies between its bend at Nanga Parbat and Dera Ismail Khan. There is also a narrow strip, the Hazara district, lying to the east of the Indus and north of Rawal Pindi.

        A good political map shows clearly the line that divides the Indian Empire from Afghanistan. The Indian Government, cannot take a step beyond this line in peace time; but within this line, i.e. to the east of it, there is much " tribal territory," usually marked yellow in political maps, which is geographically within the Empire, but with which the Indian Government does not interfere so long as the tribes dwelling in it keep the peace. Geographically, therefore, these tribes are within the Empire, but for purposes of administration they are outside it.

        Boundaries.¾E. Kashmir and the Punjab. N. and W. Afghanistan. S. Baluchistan and the Punjab.

        Physical Aspects.¾The whole country is a mass of mountains. The rivers are the keys to the geography of the province. They form the valleys, which are the only means of communication through the country. Up these valleys trade routes and military roads lead over the passes, which separate the province from Afghanistan. There are four main rivers, all tributaries of the Indus.

        I. The Kabul River flows from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, to join the Indus at Attock. The road does not follow the river valley all the way, and is called, not the Kabul route, but the Khyber route, from the Khyber Pass through which it goes. The principal town on the route is Peshawar, about 20 miles from the Pass.

        Flowing south from the Hindu Kush and its spurs, three feeders join the Kabul River¾the Chitral or Kunar River, the Panjkora, and the Swat. Bridges have recently been built across the Panjkora and the Swat, and a road has been opened up across them to Chitral, a northern frontier post in the Chitral valley.

        2. The Kurram rises in Afghanistan. At the head of its valley are the Peiwar Kotal and Shutargardan passes, leading across the Safed Koh Range. Kohat stands at the base of the valley.

        3. The Tochi, rising in the Waziristan Mountains (a part of the Sulaimans), joins the Kurram. The valley is fairly cultivated, but is not much used as a trade route. The chief town on the route is Bannu (Edwardesabad).

        4. The Gomal rises in Afghanistan, forms part of the boundary between Baluchistan and the province, and enters the Indus near Dera Ismail Khan. The Gomal valley is one of the most frequented routes between India and Afghanistan.

        Mountains.¾North of the Kabul River is the Hindu Kush Range, with its spurs running southward and separating the valleys of the Kunar, Panjkora, and Swat. South of the Kabul River are the lofty Safed Koh Range, and the Sulaiman Mountains.

        Rainfall and Productions.¾The whole of the province being out of the path of the monsoons, the rainfall is very light, and there is little vegetation or cultivation except in the valleys.

        Towns.¾The towns of the province are either military posts or centres of transit trade routes.

        Peshawar, owing to its position near the Khyber Pass, has been an important trading and military town for centuries. Caravans of camels carry silk cloth, cotton goods, sugar, tea, and Kashmir shawls to Kabul and Bokhara, and bring back raw silk, fruit, and gold and silver thread. A railway from it now runs up the Khyber Pass.

        Kohat, commanding the Kurram valley, is connected by railway with Khushalgarh on the Indus over which a bridge has here been built. Bannu, commanding the Tochi valley and Dora Ismail Khan, on the Indus where it is joined by the Gomal, are all important on account of their position as frontier posts. Chitral, far north in the Chitral valley, and Dir, half-way to it, are small towns, but important as military posts in case of war.

        History.¾The North-West Frontier Province was formed in 1901. It comprises¾(I.), the Hazara district; (2.) certain districts west of the Indus which up till then belonged to the Punjab; (3.) the frontier agencies of Dir, Swat, and Chitral, forth of the Kabul River, and the Khyber, Kurram, Tochi, and Wana agencies, south of it. These were all placed under a Chief Commissioner, who is directly responsible to the Government of India. In this way the Government of India has immediate control over all frontier relations, instead of having, as formerly, to deal with them only through the Punjab Government. The North-West Frontier Province includes all the country of the Pathans, a lawless race of Mohammedans, who are now being trained by British officers to become the defenders of their mountains, and the guardians of the passes that lead into India.

        Kashmir is a part of Frontier India, but its frontier does not touch any country from which real, danger to India can be feared. It is simply a Feudatory Indian State, just like any other.

        Shape.¾Kashmir is like a rough square fitted on to the northern boundary of the Punjab.

        Boundaries.¾N. Chinese Turkestan. E. Tibet. S. The Punjab. W. The North-West Frontier Province.

        Physical Aspects.¾Kashmir is made up of a mass of snow-covered mountains with many narrow valleys and one broad one¾ the valley of Kashmir. It is divided into two nearly equal parts by the Indus and Gilgit valleys, which meet and form a straight line, cutting across the country from south-east to north-west. All to the north of this line makes up Trans-Himalayan Kashmir; the part to the south is Himalayan Kashmir.

        Trans-Himalayan Kashmir is a mass of mountains, and except in the valley of the Shyok, it is all over 12,000 feet above sea-level. These mountains run from north-west to south-east in three roughly parallel ranges¾ first the Kailas or Gangri Range, then the Karakorams, and, forming the northern boundary, the Hindu Kush and the southern slope of the Kwen Luns. In no country in the world are there such magnificent masses of snow-covered mountains. The giants of the Alps would here look like dwarfs. The Karakoram Pass, leading into Eastern Turkestan, is over 18,000 feet high; and the loftiest peak of this range, Mount Godwin Austen (named after the man who first measured it), ranks in height next to Mount Everest.

        Himalayan Kashmir is also filled with snow-covered mountains and ice-fields. Just south of the Indus is the inner Himalayan Range, ending in Nanga Parbat (26,000 feet). Farther south is the outer Himalayan Range here called the Pir Panjal, and between these two ranges lies the beautiful valley of Kashmir, watered by the Jhelum on which stands Srinagar. Still farther south are the outer-most or sub-Himalayan Ranges, through which the Jhelum and Chenab and their tributaries cut their way into the Punjab plains.

        Rivers.¾These all flow first north-west, following the line of the mountains, and then bend south-west where they find an opening through them.

        The INDUS flows north-west through Kashmir up to its bend round Nanga Parbat. The SHYOK joins it on the right bank near the middle point of Kashmir. The GILGIT from the north-west, with its tributary the Hunza, meets it at the bend.

        The JHELUM flows first north-west through the Kashmir valley, and then turns sharply south and forms part of the boundary between Kashmir and the Punjab.

        The CHENAB flows north-west from the Punjab Himalayas, and then turns south-west to the Punjab plains.

        Lakes.¾There are many small lakes in Kashmir, both among the mountains and in the valleys. The most important are the WULAR and DAL lakes in the Kashmir valley. Lake Wular is the largest fresh-water lake in India.

        Valleys.¾The Indus and Gilgit form a long valley intersecting the country, but the most important is the Kashmir Valley, watered by the Jhelum and its canals. It is the only large extent of flat country in the state, and its situation among the snow-clad mountains makes it one of the most beautiful regions of the world. It is about 80 miles long by 20 miles broad, and it lies over 5,000 feet above sea-level.

        Climate and Productions.¾Owing to its height and the presence of masses of snow-covered mountains, the climate of Kashmir is never very hot, and from October to April it is very cold. In winter the lakes in the Kashmir valley are partly frozen. The outer range of the Himalayas shuts out the monsoon, and, in consequence, the rainfall is very light. The chief crops are wheat, barley, millets, and pulses, which can thrive without much rain. The Kashmir valley is famous for fruits, such as apples, peaches, and grapes, which grow in Europe. Mulberry trees are grown, the leaves of which, feed silkworms.

        Race, Language, and Religion.¾The Kashmiris are of a nearly pure Aryan race, but there is a slight admixture of Mongolian blood on the frontier next Tibet. Mohammedans make up about three-fourths of the population. The Hindus of Kashmir live in the hills, and are called Dogras. The people speak very mixed Aryan dialects. Owing to the mountainous nature of Kashmir and the want of rain in its trans-Himalayan part, the population is extremely sparse. Very few of the people live in towns.

        Towns.¾The towns in Kashmir are, except Srinagar and Jammu, small, and are either centres of trade routes or frontier stations.

        Srinagar (142,000), on the Jhelum, in the Kashmir valley, was in old days the hot weather residence of the Moghal emperors. The city, made up of quaint wooden houses surrounding the palace and fort, and stretching along the river banks beside the Dal Lake, in the centre of an amphitheatre of snow-clad mountains, is extremely picturesque. Its former manufactures of shawls and carpets are now much decayed, but a silk factory employing 6,000 persons has been established, and copper-work is still carried on. The commercial importance of Srinagar is clue to its being the centre of trade routes to the Punjab, on the one hand, and northern Kashmir and Tibet on the other.

        Jammu, on the southern border, at the foot of the outmost Himalayas, on a tributary of the Chenab, is connected by a line through Sialkot with the Punjab railway system. It is the only point in Kashmir yet reached by a railway.

        Leh, in Ladakh district in the upper Indus valley, lies on the caravan, route leading from Kashmir over the Karakoram Pass to Central Asia. Therefore it is the meeting-place of merchants, who rest here for weeks bartering their wool and carpets for the sugar and rice of the warm lowlands of India. When the mountain passes are open, Leh is full of tents, camels, yaks, mules, and horses, and people of many languages and religions.

        Gilgit, in the Gilgit valley, is a frontier station nearly 5,000 feet above sea-level, commanding the passes to the north over the Hindu-Kush.

        History.¾Kashmir has given its name to a large state, of which the Kashmir valley is but a small part. The state includes Jammu in the south, Ladakh in the east, Baltistan in the north, and Gilgit in the north-west, along the Gilgit valley.

        Kashmir proper was conquered from the Afghans in 1819 by Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler of the Punjab. The government of the country was given to Gholab Singh, a Dogra Rajput, who conquered and annexed the Tibetan province of Ladakh. In 1846, after the first Sikh War, the British confirmed Gholab Singh in his possessions, in return for a payment in money; and he signed a subsidiary treaty by which he agreed to present annually one horse, twelve goats, and three pairs of shawls in token of his recognition of British protection.

        Nepal and Bhutan are independent states, and so should, strictly speaking, not be included in the Indian Empire, but they are under engagements with the Indian Government, and are practically under it protection against the invasion of any foreign power. Nepal has a British Resident at the capital, but he does not interfere with the internal affairs of the state. Bhutan receives an annual subsidy of half a lakh of rupees from the Indian Government.

        Nepal is a long strip of mountainous country, including the inner and outer Himalayan Ranges.

        Boundaries.¾N. Tibet. W. The United Provinces. E. Bengal and Sikkim. S. The United Provinces and Bihar and Orissa.

        Physical Aspects.¾Nepal is a country of mountains and deep valleys, intersected by rivers flowing down to the Ganges plain.

        Mountains.¾The HIMALAYAS in Nepal are very massive and high. Dhaulagiri (26,800 feet) in the western, and Everest (29,002 feet) in the eastern half, are the highest peaks along the foot of the Himalayas stretches the Tarai, a feverish jungly valley, cultivated in parts, and the best hunting ground in India for big game.

        Rivers.¾Three rivers drain the valleys into the Ganges:¾(I.) The GOGRA with its feeders the Kali and Karnali, in the west; (2.) the GANDAK, with two feeders of the same name, in the middle; and (3.) the KOSI, in the east.

        Climate and Productions.¾There is a heavy rainfall, but only the lower valleys are cultivated, rice, millets, tobacco, and oil-seeds being the chief crops. Sal and sisu are the principal timber trees; it is too cold for teak.

        Industries and Trade.¾There are no industries in Nepal, except, of course, agriculture, but its trade with India has lately much increased. Nepal sends to Bengal grain, pulses, and oil-seeds, some jute and sabai grass (used for paper-making); and takes, in return, cotton goods, metals (brass, copper, and iron), salt, and sugar.

        Town.¾The population of Nepal is supposed to number about five and a half millions. Katmandu, the capital, lies in a valley, 4,500 feet high, among the mountains near the centre. Little is known about it. "We do not even yet know, for a certainty, which is the best route to the capital."

        History.¾Very little is known about Nepal, as no stranger is allowed to explore the country, and the Resident at Katmandu is the only European permitted to enter it. Since the Nepalese War (1814-1816), when the Nepalese lost their best provinces of Garhwal and Kumaon, now a part of the United Provinces, there has been very little intercourse with the country. But both rulers and people are friendly to the British, and arrangements are made every year by which a certain number of Nepalese (Gurkhas) are recruited for the Indian army. These are among the finest soldiers India possesses, and they gave valuable help to the Empire in the Great War.

        Bhutan, like Nepal, lies among the ranges of the Himalayas, but it is much smaller, and it does not include the forest-clad tract (the Dwars) below the hills. Its area is about 18,000 square miles.

        Boundaries.¾N. Tibet. W. Bengal (Sikkim). S. The provinces of Bengal and Assam. E. The country of unsettled hill tribes.

        Physical Aspects.¾The Himalayas fill up most of the country. Chumalhari Peak (24,000 feet) lies in the north-west. Among the ranges are numerous valleys, where alone cultivation is carried on. The drainage of these valleys flows through the Dwars into the Brahmaputra by several rivers, of which the Manas is the largest. Maize is the chief crop.

        Trade.¾Bhutan trades with Tibet rather than with India. The value of its trade with India for a whole year does not equal that of a single ship's cargo. It sends a little wool and wax, and, some ponies, and takes cotton goods, salt, and tobacco.

        Capital, Punakha, about which little is known.

        History.¾Bhutan is an unknown and unexplored country. In 1865 an expedition was sent to punish the Bhutanese. The Dwars, a tract of densely forest-clad plains, about fifty miles broad, was taken from Bhutan, and now forms part of the province of Bengal. Two military posts, Buxa and Diwangiri, at the foot of the Himalayas, are held by Indian troops. Once a year a chief comes to Buxa to receive the subsidy paid by the Indian Government, and Bhutan is left alone.

        In 1905 a peaceful mission was sent to Punakha, and a better idea of the geography of the country was obtained. The scenery is described as the most magnificent in the world. One of the Himalayan peaks, Kulha Kangri, rises to 24,740 feet and there are great valleys and stupendous gorges. The Lamas, or Buddhist priests, were found to be most hospitable, receiving the mission in their jongs, or fort-monasteries, among the mountains. The people were found to be skilful in wood-carving and metal-work.

        Sikkim.¾Between Nepal and Bhutan lies the protected state of Sikkim. Since 1890, when an expedition was sent by the Government of India to expel Tibetan invaders from the country, the government of the state has been under a British Political Officer appointed by the Bengal Government. In 1890 Great Britain and China signed a treaty settling the boundary between Tibet and Sikkim, and acknowledging the British Protectorate over Sikkim. The state is small, and has a population of little more than half a lakh, but it is important, because here the territory of a protected state touches Tibet. The valley of Chumbi (belonging to Tibet) lies between Sikkim and Bhutan, and through this passes what little trade there is between India and Tibet.

        In 1906 Sikkim was placed under the direct control of the Government of India.

        The Assam Border Tribes and Manipur.¾The Himalayan country to the east of Bhutan and lying north of Assam is occupied by a number of unsettled tribes, of which the Akas, the Abors, and the Nagas are the chief. They are really independent, and so, strictly speaking, are not within the limits of the British Empire; but the Indian Government takes responsibility for them (I) by sending expeditions among them, when necessary, to keep them in check; (2) by protecting them against foreign invasion.

        The country of the Lushai tribes, in the south-eastern corner of Assam, is now British territory, and forms a district under the Chief Commissioner of Assam.

        Manipur.¾Since 1891, when the Manipuris murdered the Chief Commissioner of Assam, the state has been under British protection. A force of frontier police keeps the lawless people in check.

        NOTE¾An expedition sent in 1911 by the Government of India to punish the Abors for the murder of some of its officers learned something of the geography of the country round the "Brahmaputra bend." The Abors, a sturdy, warlike race of Mongolian blood, inhabit the country on, both sides of the Dihang River between Assam and Eastern Tibet. The country, which is covered with dense jungle right up to the snow line, is very hilly, with peaks rising to 6,000 feet, and on the confines of Tibet up to heights of 15,000 or 20,000 feet above sea-level. The Dihang flows among these hills over waterfalls and between rocky banks, so that it is not likely it will ever be a highway of navigation. Though it was practically certain that the Dihang is the same river as the Tsanpo, this was not definitely proved till 1923. The Dibang River is quite small. The Abors live on a poor kind of rice grown in clearings on the hillsides and on jack fruits. They hunt game with bows and arrows. Their houses are all built on piles and thatched with plantain leaves. The rainfall is very heavy.

From:  Morrison, Cameron.  A New Geography of the Indian Empire and Ceylon.  Fifth Edition.  London, Edinburgh, and New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1926, 101-191.