tains ; Its products. eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. Between the narrow maritime tract and the Irawadi valley runs a backbone of lofty ranges. These ranges, known as the Yoma (Roma) mountains, are covered with dense forests, and separate the Irawadi valley from the strip of coast. The Yoma ranges have Its valleys peaks exceeding 4000 feet, and culminate in the Blue and moun- Mountain, 7100 feet. They are crossed by passes, one of which, the An or Aeng, rises to 4517 feet above the sea-level. A thousand creeks indent the seaboard; and the whole of the level country, both on the coast and in the Irawadi valley, forms one vast rice-field. The rivers float down an abundant supply of teak and bamboos from the north. Tobacco, of an excellent quality, supplies the cigars which all Burmese (men, women, and children) smoke, and affords an industrial product of increasing value. Arakan and Pegu, or the Provinces of the coast strip, and also the Irawadi valley, contain mineral oil-springs. Tenasserim forms a long narrow maritime Province, running southward from the mouths of the Irawadi to Point Victoria, where the British territory adjoins Siam. Tenasserim is rich in tin mines, and contains iron-ores equal to the finest Swedish; besides gold and copper in smaller quantities, and a very pure limestone. Rice and timber form the staple exports of Burma; and rice is also the universal food of the people. British Burma, including Tenasserim, has an area of over 87,000 square miles; and a population, in 1881, of 3 million persons. It is fortunate in still possessing wide areas of yet uncultivated land to meet the wants of its rapidly increasing people.1 Tenasserim. Annexa- 1886. Since these sheets went to press, the persistent misconduct of King Thebau in Upper Burma, his obstinate denial of justice, and his frustration of Lord Dufferin's earnest endeavours to arrive at a conciliatory settlement, compelled the British Government to send an expedition against him. A force under General Prendergast advanced up the Irawadi valley with little opposition, and occupied Mandalay. King Thebau surrendered, and was removed to honourable confinement in British India. His territories were annexed to the British Empire, by Lord Dufferin's Proclamation, on the 1st of January 1886. 1 Vidde post, pp. 47, 50. CHAPTER II. THE PEOPLE. THE POPULATION OF INDIA, with British Burma, amounted General in 1881 to 256 millions, or, as already mentioned, more than survey of the People. double the number which Gibbon estimated for the Roman Empire in the height of its power. But the English Government has respected the possessions of native chiefs, and onethird of the country still remains in the hands of its hereditary rulers. Their subjects make about one-fifth of the whole Indian people. The British territories, therefore, comprise only twothirds of the area of India, and about four-fifths of its inhabitants. Chiefs. The native princes govern their States with the help of The Feucertain English officers, whom the Viceroy stations in native datory territory. Some of the Chiefs reign almost as independent sovereigns; others require more assistance, or a stricter control. They form a magnificent body of feudatory rulers, possessed of revenues and armies of their own. The more Their important of these princes exercise the power of life and death various over their subjects; but the authority of each is limited by usage, or by treaties or engagements, acknowledging their subordination to the British Government. That Government, as Suzerain in India, does not allow its feudatories to make war upon each other, or to have any relations with foreign States. It interferes when any chief misgoverns his people; rebukes, and if needful removes, the oppressor; protects the weak; and firmly imposes peace upon all. powers. Twelve The British possessions are distributed into twelve govern- British ments, each with a separate head; but all of them under the India-the orders of the supreme Government of India, consisting of Provinces, the Governor-General in Council. The Governor-General, who also bears the title of Viceroy, holds his court and government at Calcutta in the cold weather, and during summer at Simla, an outer spur of the Himalayas, 7000 feet above the level of the sea. The Viceroy of India, and the Governors of Madras and Bombay, are usually British statesmen appointed in England by the Queen. The heads of how the other ten Provinces are selected for their merit from the governed. Census of 1881 and of 1872. Anglo-Indian services, and are nominated by the Viceroy, subject in the case of the Lieutenant-Governorships to approval by the Secretary of State. The Census of 1881 returned a population of 256,396,646 souls for all India. The following tables give an abstract of the area and population of each of the British Provinces, and THE TWELVE GOVERNMENTS OR PROVINCES OF Including the three petty States of Pudukota, Banganapalli, and Sandhúr. 2 Exclusive of 5976 square miles of unsurveyed and half-submerged Sundarbans along the sea face of the Bay of Bengal. The Imperial Census Report does not distinguish between the Feudatory States and British territory in the returns for Bengal. The figures given above are taken from the Provincial Census Report, and refer to British territory only. The area and population of the Native States of Bengal are shown in the table on the next page. Oudh has been incorporated, since 1877, with the North-Western Provinces. The Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces is also Chief-Commissioner of Oudh. 4 Assam was separated from the Lieutenant-Governorship of Bengal in 1874. and erected into a Chief-Commissionership. The area includes an estimate for the unsurveyed tracts in the Cachar, Nágá, and Lakhimpur Hills. 5 Berar consists of the six 'Assigned Districts' made over to the British administration by the Nizám of Haidarábád for the maintenance of the Haidarábád Contingent, which he was bound by treaty to maintain, and in discharge of other obligations. 6 These figures are exclusive of the population of the British Settlement of Aden in Arabia (34,860), and of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal (14,628). These places have not been included in the tables of the Imperial Census Report, as being outside the geographical limits of India. BRITISH, FEUDATORY, AND FOREIGN 45 groups of Native States, together with the French and Portuguese possessions in India. The population in 1872 was as follows:-British India, 186 millions; Feudatory States, over 54 millions; French and Portuguese possessions, nearly of a million; total for all India, 240,931,521 in 1872. THE THIRTEEN GROUPS OF NATIVE STATES FORMING If to the foregoing figures we add the French and Portuguese possessions, we obtain the total for all India. ALL INDIA, INCLUDING BRITISH BURMA. Area in Thus Miles. Mysore was under direct British administration from 1830 to 1881, when it was restored to native rule on its young chief attaining his majority. 2 The Kashmir figures relate to the year 1873. Density of the popu lation, British India, therefore, supports a population much more than twice as dense as that of the Native States. If we exclude the outlying and lately-acquired Provinces of British Burma and Assam, the proportion is nearly three-fold, or 260 persons to the square mile. How thick this population is, may be realized from the fact that France had in 1876 only compared 180 people to the square mile; while even in crowded England, with wherever the density approaches 200 to the square mile it France and England. ceases to be a rural population, and has to live, to a greater or less extent, by manufactures, mining, or city industries.1 Throughout large areas of Bengal, two persons have to live on the proceeds of each cultivated acre, or 1280 persons to each cultivated square mile. The Famine Commissioners reported in 1880, that over 6 millions of the peasant holdings of Bengal, or two-thirds of the whole, averaged from 2 to 3 acres a-piece. Allowing only four persons to the holding, for men, women, and children, this represents a population of 24 millions. struggling to live off 15 million acres, or a little over half an acre a-piece. Absence of large towns. Unlike England, India has few large towns, and no great manufacturing centres. Thus, in England and Wales 42 per cent., or nearly one-half of the population in 1871, lived in towns with upwards of 20,000 inhabitants, while in British. India only 4 per cent., or not one-twentieth of the people, Population live in such towns. India, therefore, is almost entirely a rural entirely rural. Over. crowded Districts. country; and many of the so-called towns are mere groups of villages, in the midst of which the cattle are driven a-field, and ploughing and reaping go on. Calcutta itself has grown out of a cluster of hamlets on the bank of the Húgli; and the term 'municipality,' which in Europe is only applied to towns, often means in India a 'rural union,' or collection of home.steads for the purposes of local government. men. We see, therefore, in India, a dense population of husbandWherever their numbers exceed 1 to the acre, or 640 to the square mile,-excepting in suburban districts or in irrigated tracts,-the struggle for existence becomes hard. At half an acre a-piece that struggle is terribly hard. In such Districts, a good harvest yields just sufficient food for the people; and thousands of lives depend each autumn on a few inches more or less of rainfall. The Government may, by great efforts, feed the starving in time of actual famine; but it cannot stop the yearly work of disease and death among a steadily underfed people. In these overcrowded tracts the 1 Report on the Census of England and Wales for 1871. |