HISTORY OF INDIA. CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION. Part I.-Physical Features. General Description of the Country-Its great Physical Divisions -The Himalayan Region-Its Western, Central, and Eastern Portions-The Great Plain of the Ganges-Of the Indus-The Highlands of Central India-Table-Land of Malwar The Deccan-The Vindhya Hills--The Western Ghauts-The Eastern Ghauts-The Neilgherries-Southern India-Ceylon. THERE are few countries in the universe, geographically speaking, more interesting than India.* An epitome of the vast continent with which it is associated that portion of the globe which, perhaps, beyond any other, answers to the description of the poet: "A world of wonders, where creation seems No more the works of nature, but her dreams." It presents a diversity of surface, and a variety and grandeur of aspect which could scarcely be surpassed by the creations of the most fertile imagination. Here the * Or Hindustan, which term comes from the Persian, and signifies the country of the Hindus. It is employed to denominate the cis-Gangetic peninsula, or that part of India, or the East Indies, which lies upon the western side of the River Ganges. The length of this peninsula from north to south is 1800 miles, and its greatest breadth along the parallel of 25° north latitude, about 1500 miles. Its area is about 1,300,000 square miles. 1 terraced heights of a gigantic mountain chain, towering to the clouds, and shrouded in the mantle of eternal snow, look down into hollows of unfathomable depth, shelve gently into valleys traversed by the feeders of the mighty rivers of the peninsula, or tower above thicklywooded glens of sublime and desolate grandeur. There the expanse of a boundless plain-for the most part covered with luxuriant vegetation, and crossed by the waters of the most majestic streams of the continent— sweeps across the land from its eastern to its western boundary. Now, a stretch of country presenting the appearance of a rough and broken table-land with an extensive plateau beyond it, in parts monotonously level and treeless, in other quarters a pleasing alternation of hill and valley. The whole of this latter district is bounded by precipitous and well-wooded mountain chains-in some places shelving to the sea, in others presenting a rocky rampart to its waters. Nor is the botanical aspect of the country less varied and interesting than are its physical features. Possessing, by reason of its extent and diversity of surface, a climate varying from tropical heat to Arctic rigour, and a soil watered by innumerable streams, and unusually fertile, the vegetable productions of the entire world contribute to clothe and beautify its surface. "Its vast plains present the double harvests, the luxuriant foliage, and even the burning deserts of the torrid zone; the lower heights are enriched by the fruits and grains of the temperate climates; the upper steppes are clothed with vast pine-forests of the north; while the highest pinnacles are buried beneath the perpetual snows of the Arctic zone. We do not here, as in Africa and the polar regions, see nature under one uniform aspect; on the contrary, we have to trace gradual, yet complete transitions, between the most opposite extremes that can exist on the surface of the same planet." The features above mentioned divide India physically into five regions, namely-(1) the Himalayan Region; (2) the Great Plain; (3) the Vindhyan Region, or the hill |