The local governments of India from the Hindoo period to the present time, with a sketch of the covenanted and uncovenanted services. 251 The commercial history of the three presidencies, with a sketch of the morality of Anglo-Indian commerce and banking in the nineteenth 367 395 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Marquis of DalHOUSIE, K.T., Governor-GenerAL OF INDIA Frontispiece. Title-page. THE THREE PRESIDENCIES OF INDIA. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF HE various countries which now form the three Presidencies of India, together with those native states which are independent of, though in close alliance with, the East India Company, have been at various times known under several denominations. They have been comprehensively and indiscriminately spoken of as Hindostan, the East Indies, and the Indian Peninsula; they are now more correctly termed British India, which term, of course, excludes such independent states as have been alluded to. Extending from Cape Comorin on the south to the Himalayan range on the north, and from the delta of the Berrampootra on the east to the Indus on the west, British India, exclusive of the recently annexed province of Pegu, may be said to include within its limits 1,200,000 square miles of territory. Of these, the Presidency of Bengal contains 306,012 square miles; Madras, 141,920; Bombay, 64,908; and Scinde and the Punjab about 160,000 square miles; the remainder being the extent of the allied states. The coast-line of British India amounts to about 3200 miles. Of these 1800 miles are washed by the Indian Ocean, and 1400 miles by the Bay of Bengal. The extreme length of India from north to south may be taken as 1800 miles; its greatest width, along the parallel of 25° N. latitude, is about 1500 miles. Intersected by vast ranges of lofty mountains, the Indian peninsula presents a remarkably varied surface of table-land, delta, and B |