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THE THRee regionS OF INDIA. feature of Southern India. The food of the common people consists chiefly of small grains, such as joár, bájra, and rágí. The great export is cotton, with wheat from the northern Districts of the table-land. The pepper trade of Malabár dates from far beyond the age of Sindbad the Sailor, and reaches back to Roman times. Cardamoms, spices of various sorts, dyes, and many medicinal drugs, are also grown.

It is on the interior table-land, and among the hilly spurs Minerals ; which project from it, that the mineral wealth of India lies hid. Coal-mining now forms a great industry on the Coal, north-eastern side of the table-land, in Bengal; and also in Lime, the Central Provinces. Beds of iron-ore and limestone have been worked in several places, and hold out a possibility of a new era of enterprise to India in the future. Many districts

are rich in building stone, marble, and the easily - worked laterite. Copper and other metals exist in small quantities. Golconda was long famous as the central mart for the produce of the diamond districts, which now yield little more than a bare living to the workers. Gold dust has from very ancient times been washed out of the river-beds; and quartz-crushing for gold is being attempted on scientific principles in Madras and Mysore.

Iron.

lation :

the Three

India.

We have now briefly surveyed the three regions of India. Recapitu The first, or the Himalayan, lies for the most part beyond the British frontier; but a knowledge of it supplies the key to Regions of the climatic and social conditions of India. The second region, or the River Plains in the north, formed the theatre of the ancient race movements which shaped the civilisation and political destinies of the whole Indian peninsula. The third region, or the Triangular Table-land in the south, has a character quite distinct from either of the other two divisions, and a population which is now working out a separate development of its own. Broadly speaking, the Himalayas are Their peopled by Turanian tribes, although to a large extent ruled races and by Aryan immigrants. The great River Plains of Bengal are guages. still the possession of the Indo-Aryan race. The Triangular Table-land has formed an arena for a long struggle between the Aryan civilisation from the north, and what is known as the Dravidian stock in the south.

lan

To this vast Empire the English have added BRITISH British BURMA, consisting of the lower valley of the Irawadi (Irra- Burma waddy) with its delta, and a long flat strip stretching down the

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-
tion of
Upper
Burma,

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 Vide 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.

Chiefs.

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. 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
BRITISH INDIA, IN 1881.

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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.

3 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.

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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.

Under the
Governor-General

in Council.

Local Governments. Under the

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
FEUDATORY INDIA, IN 1881.

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If to the foregoing figures we add the French and Portuguese possessions, we obtain the total for all India. Thus

ALL INDIA, INCLUDING BRITISH BURMA.
(Based chiefly on the Census of 1881.)

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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.

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