cane, are extensively grown. Jubbulpur, Sagur, and Nagpur, are the chief towns, the former is the capital.

Nagpur.-The city of snakes.

Poor, pore, or pura, also ore and patam: =a city.

Abad and ward a dwelling or town.

=

LESSON XXVIII.

INDIA.PROVINCES AND CHIEF TOWNS--II,

MADRAS, BOMBAY, ASSAM, BRITISH BURMA.

1. The province of Madras may be said roughly to embrace the maritime plains on the south and east of the great peninsula. It has a population about as large as Great Britain and Ireland. Madras is the second of

the great provinces of India; but it is by no means so valuable for its size as Bengal, for though it possesses a coast-line of over 1,700 miles, it does not boast of one

good natural harbour. Its soil also is not very fertile, and it often suffers from drought.

2. The city of Madras contains over half a million of people, and owing to the large gardens, or "compounds," as they are called in India, it covers an area of nine square miles. During the hot season the temperature is very high, though somewhat modified by a pleasant seabreeze known to the residents as "the doctor."

3. Madras is a great centre of commerce, and is in railway communication with all parts of India, but is singularly unfortunate in possessing no harbour. A few feet from the shore the surf bursts into a long line of breakers, which thunder for miles along the coast. No European ships can pass this wall of surf, and communication between the shore and the ships in the roadstead is made by means of native boats. Yet, in spite of these difficulties, the city does a considerable amount of foreign trade, chiefly in coffee, rice, and hides.

4. The province of Bombay extends along the west of

G

India from Mysore to the plains of Sind on the Lower Indus. Its length is upwards of 1,000 miles, and unlike that of the Madras province, the coast is broken by some fine harbours. The population numbers about 17,000,000. 5. The surface and the climate of this province are greatly varied, embracing as it does the forest-clad Western Ghats, the maritime plains between the mountains and the sea, a part of the islands of the Deccan, and the flat, arid land of Sind.

6. Bombay island and town form by far the most important part of the province. The city of Bombay * is the most important outlet of Western India, and the great centre of its foreign trade. Railways bring goods for export from the great towns in the valley of the Upper Ganges, and even from Madras. Surat, at the mouth of the Tapti, the site of the first English factory; Puna, the military station of the Deccan; Karachi, the port of Sind, are other important towns.

7. Assam lies to the west of the Brahmaputra. It consists of a series of fertile and well-watered valleys. Rice is largely cultivated near the rivers, and tea on the hill-sides. The province covers a little over 40,000 square miles, and has a population of about 4,000,000.

8. British Burma includes Arakan, Pegu, and Tenasserim, three provinces which lie along the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal, stretching from Assam almost as far south as the Indian peninsula itself. Arakan consists of maritime plains suitable for the cultivation of rice, but partly covered with jungle. Pegu is a rich and fertile district comprising the vast delta of the Irawadi. Rice is the chief product of the flat lands, whilst the higher grounds have the finest teak forests in the world. Great quantities of this wood are also obtained from the more mountainous country of Tenasserim.

9. Rangoon, a town with a population of nearly 100,000 is the capital. At the height of the rice season Rangoon is a very busy place, owing to the presence of so many foreign ships taking in cargo. Maulmain, the port of Tenasserim, exports large quantities of teak,

Bom bahea, the Portuguese for a good port.

96

LESSON XXIX.

INDIA. INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, REVENUE.

1. India, as we have seen, has many climates, and is capable of growing the products of almost any country. It is an agricultural country-two-thirds of its people being engaged in cultivating the soil-and whenever disturbances and wars in other parts of the world have stopped the supply of some particular product, India has been found capable of meeting the fresh demand.

2. Thus, during the Russian war, the manufacturers of Europe and America looked to India for the hemp which no longer reached them from the Baltic; and when the American war caused a failure in the cotton supply, India sent out raw cotton to the value of £37,500,000 in one year.

3. Immense quantities of the produce of the soil are exported to other countries. Chief among these are the raw materials for textile manufactures. In the early days of Indian trade it was manufactured goods, and not raw material, which were sent across the seas. The beautiful gossamer muslins of Dacca, the coloured calicoes of the towns of Southern India, and the shawls, silks, and carpets of other towns, were famous all over the world. But the invention of steam machinery, and the cheapness of carriage, have completely changed the commerce of India, and nowadays England, for the most part, imports the cotton and sends it back to India in its woven state. Another change is, however, in progress; India is importing machinery, and the cotton manufacture is likely to be revived in a new form.

4. The chief trade of India is with Great Britain, China, and Ceylon, and nearly 6,000 vessels are engaged in the foreign trade. The total value of the exports to all countries amount to about £65,000,000 per annum, and of this about £26,000,000 worth are received in Great Britain. The chief exports, taken in the order of their value, are opium (sent chiefly to China), grain