outline.

sions.

INDIA forms a great irregular triangle, stretching southwards General from Mid-Asia into the sea. Its northern base rests upon the Himalayan ranges; the chief part of its western side is washed by the Arabian Sea, and the chief part of its eastern side by the Bay of Bengal. It extends from the eighth to the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude; that is to say, from the hottest regions of the equator to far within the temperate zone. The capital, Calcutta, lies in 88° E. long. ; so that when the sun sets at six o'clock there, it is just past mid-day in England. The length of India from north to south, and its greatest Dimenbreadth from east to west, are both about 1900 miles; but the triangle tapers with a pear-shaped curve to a point at Cape Comorin, its southern extremity. To this compact dominion the English have added, under the name of British Burma, the strip of country on the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal. The whole territory thus described contains close on 1 millions of square miles, and over 256 millions of inhabitants. India, therefore, has an area and a population about equal to the area and population of the whole of Europe, less Russia. Its people more than double Gibbon's estimate of 120 millions for all the races and nations which obeyed Imperial Rome.

This vast Asiatic peninsula has, from a very ancient period, the word Origin of been known to the external world by one form or other of the 'India.'

VOL. VI.

A

Sanskrit,

Greek

forms.

name which it still bears. The early Indians did not themselves recognise any single designation for their numerous and diverse races; their nearest approach to a common appellation for India being Bhárata-varsha, the land of the Bharatas, a noble warrior tribe which came from the north. But this term, although afterwards generalized, applied only to the basins. of the Indus and the Ganges, and strictly speaking to only a part of them. The Indus river formed the first great landmark of nature which arrested the march of the peoples of Central Asia as they descended upon the plains of the Punjab. That mighty river impressed itself on the imagination of the ancient world. To the early comers from the high-lying camping grounds of inner Asia, it seemed a vast expanse of waters.

They called it in Sanskrit by the word which they gave Zend, and to the ocean itself, Sindhus (from the root syand, 'to flow '): a name afterwards applied to the ocean-god (Varuna). The term extended itself to the country around the river, and in its plural form, Sindhavas, to the inhabitants thereof. The ancient Persians, softening the initial sibilant to an aspirate, called it Hendu in the Zend language: the Greeks, again softening the initial by omitting the aspirate altogether, derived from it their Indikos and Indos. These forms closely correspond to the ancient Persian word Idhus, which is used in the inscriptions of Darius for the dwellers on the Indus. But the native Indian form (Sindhus) was known to the Greeks, as is proved by the Sinthos of the Periplus Maris Erythraei, and by the distinct statement of Pliny, 'Indus incolis Sindus appellatus.' Virgil says, 'India mittit ebur.'

Buddhist

derivation

The eastern nations of Asia, like the western races of of In-tu.' Europe, derived their name for India from the great river of the Punjab. The Buddhist pilgrims from China, during the first seven centuries of our era, usually travelled landward to Hindustán, skirting round the Himalayas, and entering the holy land of their faith by the north-western frontier of India. One of the most celebrated of these pious travellers, Hiuen Tsiang (629-645 A.D.), states that India 'was anciently called Shin-tu, also Hien-tau; but now, according to the right pronunciation, it is called In-tu.' This word in Chinese means the moon; and the cradle-land of Buddhism derived its name, according to the good pilgrim, from its superior glory in the spiritual firmament, sicut luna inter minora sidera. 'Though there be torches by night and the shining of the stars,' he says, 'how different from the bright (cool) moon! Just so the bright connected light of holy men and sages, guiding the world as the shining of the moon, have made this country

BOUNDARIES OF INDIA.

3

eminent, and so it is called In-tu.' Notwithstanding the pious philology of the pilgrim, the great river of the Punjab is, of course, the origin of the Chinese name.

The term Hindustán is derived from the modern Persian form (Hind), and properly applies only to the Punjab and the central basin of the Ganges. It is reproduced, however, with a wider signification in the title of the Queen-Empress, Kaisar-i- Kaisar-iHind, the Cæsar, Kaiser, Czar, or Sovereign-paramount of India.

Hind.

India is shut off from the rest of Asia on the north by a Boundaries, vast mountainous region, known in the aggregate as the Himalayas. Among their southern ranges lie the Independent States of Bhután and Nepál: the great table-land of Tibet on the north, stretches northward behind: the Native Principality of Kashmir occupies their western corner. At this north-western angle of and northIndia (in lat. 36° N., long. 75° E.), an allied mountain system west; branches southwards. Its lofty offshoots separate India on the on the west, by the well-marked ranges of the Safed Koh and the Sulái- west; mán, from Afghánistán; and by a southern continuation of lower hills (the Hálas, etc.) from Baluchistán. The southernmost part of the western land frontier of India is the river Hab; and the boundary ends with Cape Monze, at the mouth of its estuary, in lat. 24° 50' N., long. 66° 43′ E. Still proceeding southwards, India is bounded along the west and south-west by the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Turning northwards from its southern extremity at Cape Comorin (lat. 8° 4' 20" N., long. 77° 35′ 35′′ E.), on the the Bay of Bengal forms the main part of its eastern boundary.

east.

But in the north-east, as in the north-west, India has again a Burmese land frontier. The Himalayan ranges at their north-eastern boundary. angle (in about lat. 28° N., long. 97° E.) throw off long spurs and chains to the southward. These spurs separate the British Provinces of Assam and Eastern Bengal from Independent Burma. They are known successively as the Abar, Nágá, Patkoi, and Bárel ranges. Turning almost due south in lat. 25°, they culminate in the Blue Mountain, 7100 feet, in lat. 22° 37′ N., long. 93° 10′ E.; and then stretch southwards under the name of the Arakan Yomas, separating British Burma from Independent Burma, until they again rise into the great mountain of Myin-matin (4700 feet), in 19 degrees of north latitude. Up to this point, the eastern hill frontier runs in a southerly direction, and follows, generally speaking, the watershed which divides the river systems of Bengal and

1 Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World; translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang by Samuel Beal. Vol. i. p. 69. Trübner. 1884.

British Burma (namely, the Brahmaputra, Meghná, Kuladan, etc.) from the Irawadi basin in Independent Burma. But from near the base of the Myin-matin Mountain, the British frontier stretches almost due east in a geographical line, which divides the lower Districts and delta of the Irawadi in British Burma, from the middle and upper Districts of that river in Independent Burma. Proceeding south-eastwards from the delta of the Irawadi, a confused succession of little explored ranges separates the British Province of Tenasserim from the Native Kingdom of Siam. The boundary line runs down to Point Victoria at the extremity of Tenasserim (lat. 9° 59′ N., long. boundary. 98° 32′ E.), following the direction of the watershed between the rivers of the British territory on the west and of Siam on the east.

Tenasserim

The three Regions of India.

Physical The Empire included within these boundaries is rich in aspects. varieties of scenery and climate, from the highest mountains in the world, to vast river deltas raised only a few inches above the level of the sea. It forms a continent rather than a country. But if we could look down on the whole from a balloon, we should find that India consists of three separate and well-defined tracts. The first includes the lofty Himálaya Mountains, which shut it out from the rest of Asia, and which, although for the most part beyond the British frontier, form a most important factor in the physical geography of Northern India. The second region stretches southwards from the base of the Himalayas, and comprises the plains of the great rivers which issue from them. The third region slopes upward again from the southern edge of the river plains, and consists of a high three-sided table-land, buttressed by the Vindhya Mountains on the north, and by the Eastern and Western Ghats which run down the coast on either side of India, till they meet at a point near Cape Comorin. The interior three-sided table-land, thus enclosed, is dotted with peaks and ranges, broken by river valleys, and interspersed by broad level uplands. It comprises the southern half of the peninsula.

First

The Himá

The first of the three regions is the Himálaya Mountains Region, and their offshoots to the southward. The Himálayas-literally, layas. the Abode of Snow,' from the Sanskrit hima, frost (Latin, hiems, winter), and álaya, a house-consist of a system of stupendous ranges, the loftiest in the world. They are the Emodus or Imaus of the Greek geographers, and extend in the shape of a scimitar, with its edge facing southwards, for a distance of 1500 miles along the northern frontier of India. At the north-eastern angle of that frontier, the Dihang river,

THE HIMALAYAN NORTHERN WALL. 5

the connecting link between the Tsan-pu (Sangpu) of Tibet and the Brahmaputra of Assam, bursts through the main axis of the Himálayas. At the opposite or north-western angle, the Indus in like manner pierces the Himálayas, and turns southwards on its course through the Punjab. The Himalayas, like the Kuen-luen chain, the Tián-shan, and the Hindu Kush, converge towards the Pamir table-land-that central knot whence the great mountain systems of Asia radiate. With the Kuen-luen the Himálayas have a closer connection, as these two mighty ranges form respectively the northern and southern buttresses of the lofty Tibetan plateau. The Himálayas project east and west beyond the Indian frontier. Their total length is about 1750 miles, and their breadth from north to south from 150 to 250 miles.1

Regarded merely as a natural frontier separating India The from the Tibetan plateau, the Himalayas may be described as double a double mountain wall running nearly east and west, with a Wall and Himalayan trough or series of deep valleys beyond. The southernmost Trough beyond. of the two walls rises steeply from the plains of India to 20,000 feet, or nearly 4 miles, in height. It culminates in KANCHANJANGA, 28,176 feet, and MOUNT EVEREST, 29,002 feet, the latter being the loftiest measured peak in the world. This outer or southern wall of the Himalayas subsides on the northward into a series of dips or uplands, reported to be 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, beyond which rises the second or inner range of Himalayan peaks. The double Himalayan wall thus formed, then descends into a great trough or line of valleys, in which the Sutlej, the Indus, and the mighty Tsan-pu (Sangpu) gather their waters.

The Sutlej and the Indus flow westwards, and pierce through the Western Himalayas by separate passes into the Punjab. The Tsan-pu, after a long unexplored course eastwards along the valley of the same name in Tibet, finds its way through the Dihang gorge of the Eastern Himálayas into Assam, where it takes its final name of the Brahmaputra. On the north of the river trough, beyond the double Himálayan wall, rise the Karakoram and Gangri mountains, which form the immediate escarpment of the Tibetan table-land. Behind the Gangris, on the north, the lake-studded plateau of Tibet spreads itself out at a height averaging 15,000 feet. Broadly speaking, the double Himálayan wall rests upon the low-lying plains of

Some geographers hold that the Himalayan system stretches in a continuous chain westwards along the Oxus to 68° E. long.; and that only an arbitrary line can be drawn between the Himálayan ranges and the elevated regions of Tibet to the north of them.