supporting mountain Its three of the Gangetic plains. Three ranges of hills support its northern, its eastern, and its western side, the two latter meeting at a sharp angle near Cape Comorin. walls. The Vindhyá Mountains; their various ranges; The northern side rests on confused ranges, running with a general direction of east to west, and known in the aggregate as the Vindhya Mountains. The Vindhyás, however, are made up of several distinct hill systems. Two sacred peaks stand as outposts in the extreme east and west, with a succession of ranges stretching 800 miles between. At the western extremity, Mount Abu, famous for its exquisite Jain temples, rises, as a solitary outlier of the Aravalli Hills, 5650 feet above the Rájputána plains, like an island out of the sea. Beyond the southern limits of that plain, the Vindhya range of modern geography runs almost due east from Guzerat, forming the northern wall of the Narbadá valley. The Satpura Mountains stretch, also east and west, to the south of that river, and form the watershed between it and the Tápti. Towards the heart of India, the eastern extremities of these two ranges end in the highlands of the Central Provinces with their lofty level plains. Passing still farther east, the hill system finds a continuation in the Káimur range and its congeners; which eventually end in the outlying peaks and spurs that mark the western boundary of Lower Bengal, and abut on the old course of the Ganges under the name of the Rájmahál Hills. On the extreme east, Mount Parasnáth-like Mount Abu on the extreme west, sacred to Jain rites-rises to 4400 feet above the level of the Gangetic plain. The various ranges of the Vindhyás, from 1500 to over 4000 feet high, form, as it were, the northern wall and buttresses which support the central tableland. Now pierced by road and railway, they stood in former times as a barrier of mountain and jungle between Northern and Southern India, and formed one of the main difficulties in welding the whole into an empire. They consist Southern of vast masses of forests, ridges, and peaks, broken by cultivated valleys and broad high-lying plains. the ancient barrier between Northern and India. TheGhats. Eastern Western The other two sides of the elevated southern triangle are known as the Eastern and Western GHATS. These chains start southwards from the eastern and western extremities of the Vindhyas, and run along the eastern and western coasts of India. The Eastern Ghats stretch in fragmentary spurs and ranges down the Madras Presidency, receding inland and leaving broad, level tracts between their base and the coast. The Western Ghats form the great sea-wall of the Bombay Presidency, with only a narrow strip between them and the shore. Some of them rise in magnificent precipices and headlands out of the ocean, and truly look like colossal 'passes or landing-stairs' (gháts) from the sea. The Eastern Ghats have an average elevation of 1500 feet. The Western Ghats ascend more abruptly from the sea to an average height of about 3000 feet, with peaks up to 4700, along the Bombay coast; rising to 7000 and even 8760 feet in the upheaved angle The upwhere they unite with the Eastern Ghats, towards their southern southern extremity. heaved gular from the coast; the angle. The inner triangular plateau thus enclosed lies from 1000 The cento 3000 feet above the level of the sea. But it is dotted tral trianwith peaks and seamed with ranges exceeding 4000 feet in plateau. height. Its best known hills are the Nilgiris (Blue Mountains), with the summer capital of Madras, Utakamand, 7000 feet above the sea. Their highest point is Dodábetta peak, 8760 feet, at the upheaved southern angle. The interior plateau. is approached by several famous passes from the level Passes coast-strip on the western side. The Bor-Ghát, for example, ascends a tremendous ravine about 40 miles south-east of Bor-Ghát, Bombay city, to a height of 1798 feet. In ancient times it was regarded as the key to the Deccan, and could be held by a small band against any army attempting to penetrate from the coast. A celebrated military road was constructed by the British up this pass, and practically gave the command of the interior to the then rising port of Bombay. A railway line has now been carried up the gorge, twisting round the shoulders of mountains, tunnelling through intervening crags, and clinging along narrow ledges to the face of the precipice. At one point the zigzag is so sharp as to render a circuitous turn impossible, and the trains have to stop and reverse their direction on a levelled terrace. The Thall Ghát, to the north-east of Bombay, has in like manner the Thall been scaled both by road and railway. Another celebrated Ghát, pass, farther down the coast, connects the military centre of Belgaum with the little port of Vingurla. These 'landingstairs' from the sea to the interior present scenes of rugged grandeur. The trap rocks stand out, after ages of denudation, like circular fortresses flanked by round towers, from the mass of hills behind; natural fastnesses, which in the Marhatta times were rendered impregnable by military art. In the south of Bombay, the passes climb up from the sea through thick forests, the haunt of the tiger and the mighty bison. Still farther down the coast, the western mountain- the Palwall dips deep into the Palghát valley-a remarkable gap, ghát Pass. The rivers of the inner plateau ; no exit westwards. 20 miles broad, and leading by an easy route, only 1000 feet in height, from the seaboard to the interior. A third railway and military road start by this passage from Beypur across the peninsula to Madras. On the eastern side of India, the Gháts form a series of spurs and buttresses for the elevated inner plateau rather than a continuous mountain wall. They are traversed by a number of broad and easy passages from the Madras coast. Through these openings, the rainfall of the southern half of the inner plateau reaches the sea. The drainage from the northern or Vindhyán edge of the three-sided tableland falls into the Ganges. The Narbadá (Nerbudda) and Tápti carry the rainfall of the southern slopes of the Vindhyás and of the Satpura Hills, by two almost parallel lines, into the Gulf of Cambay. But from Surat, in lat. 21° 9', to Cape Comorin, in lat. 8° 4′, no great river succeeds in piercing the Western Ghats, or in reaching the Bombay coast from the interior tableland. The Western Ghats form, in fact, a lofty unbroken barrier between the waters of the central plateau and the Indian Ocean. The drainage has therefore to make its way across India to the eastwards, now twisting sharply round projecting ranges, then tumbling down ravines, or rushing along valleys, until the rain which the Bombay sea-breeze has dropped upon the Western Ghats finally falls into the Bay of Bengal. In this way the three great rivers of the Madras Presidency, viz. the Godávari, the Kistna (Krishna), and the Káveri (Cauvery), rise in the mountains overhanging the Bombay coast, and traverse the whole breadth of the central tableland before they reach the sea on the eastern shores of India. The physical geography and the political destiny of the signifi- two sides of the Indian peninsula, have been determined by the characteristics of the mountain ranges on either coast. On the east, the country is comparatively open, and was everywhere accessible to the spread of civilisation. On the east, therefore, the ancient dynasties of Southern India fixed their capitals. Along the west, only a narrow strip of lowland intervenes between the barrier range and the seaboard. The inhabitants of those tracts remained apart from the civilisation of the eastern coast. To this day, one of their ruling races, the Nairs, retain land-tenures and social customs, such as polyandry, which mark a much ruder stage of human advancement than Hinduism, and which in other parts of India only linger among isolated hill tribes. On the other hand, the people of the western coast enjoy a bountiful Historical cance of the Eastern and West ern Ghats, By the rainfall. rainfall, unknown in the inner plateau and the east. The and of the monsoon dashes its rain-laden clouds against the Western Gháts, and pours from 100 to 200 inches of rain upon their maritime slopes from Khándesh down to Malabar. time the monsoon has crossed the Western Ghats, it has dropped the greater part of its aqueous burden, and central Districts, such as Bangalore, obtain only about 35 inches. The eastern coast also receives a monsoon of its own; but, except in the neighbourhood of the sea, the rainfall throughout the Madras Presidency is scanty, seldom exceeding 40 inches in the year. The deltas of the three great rivers along the Madras coast form, however, tracts of inexhaustible fertility; and much is done by irrigation to husband and utilize both the local rainfall and the accumulated waters which the rivers bring down. ern table The ancient Sanskrit poets speak of Southern India as Products buried under forests; and sál, ebony, sissu, teak, and other of southgreat trees, still abound. The Western Ghats, in particular, land. are covered with magnificent vegetation wherever a sapling can take root. The mountains of Kánara, Malabar, Mysore, and Coorg, furnish the Forest Department with its richest supplies. Along some of their highest ridges grow what is officially known as 'The Evergreen Forest.' The pún (Calophyllum angustifolium) shoots up straight to a hundred feet without branch or bend. Few trees in the world are Trees and Forests. better suited for ships' spars and masts. The fruit-yielding jack (Artocarpus integrifolia), the iron-wood (Mesua ferrea), the Indian mahogany (Cedrela toona), ebony (Diospyros ebenaster), the champac (Michelia champaca), teak (Tectona grandis), blackwood unsurpassed for carvings (Dalbergia latifolia), sál admirable for building purposes (Shorea robusta), the precious sandal-wood (Santalum album), and the universal bamboo,-these are a few of the forest products of the Gháts and inner ranges of the three-sided southern plateau. Interspersed among the tall trees flourish an infinite variety of shrubs, gorgeous parasites, and creepers. European enterprise has covered many a hillside in Mysore and Madras with coffee. Cinchona and tea are also grown. southern peaks hill In wild tropical beauty nothing can surpass the luxuriance Scenery of of an untouched Coorg forest, as viewed from one of the of the Western Ghats. A waving descent of green, broken into country. terraces of varying heights, slopes downward on every side. North and south run parallel ranges of mountains, wooded almost to the summit; while to the west, thousands of feet E Crops of India. Minerals; Coal, Lime, Iron. Recapitu. lation: the Three Regions of India. below, the view is bounded by the blue line of the Arabian In the valleys, and upon the elevated plains of the central It is on the three-sided tableland, and among the hilly I have now briefly surveyed the three regions of India. 1 t |