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Extracted from:
 
''' THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA  '''
 
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
 
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
 
PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF HIS MAJESTY'S
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL
 
OXFORD
 
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
 
1909
 
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

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==Extreme variety of physical aspects==
No one who travels through the length and breadth of the continent of India can fail to be struck with the extraordinary " In the north rise magnificent aspects. 
mountain altitudes, bound by snowfield and glacier in eternal 
solitude. At their feet lie smooth wide spaces of depressed 
river basins ; either sandy, dry, and sun-scorched, or cultivated 
and water-logged under a steamy moisture-laden atmosphere. 
To the south spreads a great central plateau, where indigenous 
forest still hides the scattered clans of aboriginal tribes ; flanked 
on the west by the broken crags and castellated outlines of the 
ridges overlooking the Indian Ocean, and on the south by gentle, 
smooth, rounded slopes of green upland. Something at least 
of the throes and convulsions of nature which accompanied 
the birth of this changeful land is recorded in the physical 
aspect of thS mountains and valleys which traverse it ; and an 
appeal to the evidence of the rocks is answered by the story 
of its evolution.

==India in ancient geological times==
Oldest of all the physical features which intersect the con- India in 
Ancient is tiie range of mountains known as the Aravallis, ancient . 
which strikes across^ the Peninsula from north-east to south- times. 
west, overlooking the arifty wastes of Rajputana. The Ara- 
vallis are but the depressed and degraded relics of a far more 
prominent mountain system, which stood, in Palaeozoic times, 
on the edge of the Rajputana Sea. The disintegrated rocks 
which once formed par? of the Aravallis are now spread out in 
wide red-sandstone plains to the east. There Vindhyan and 
Cuddapah sedimentary deposits cover the ancient core of gneiss and granite which formed the bed-rock when, in the 
earliest beginnings of which geological science can take 
account, the Peninsula extended from the Aravallis to the 
present east coast. There is no evidence of any great change 
in the outline of the east coast of India sinc^. Palaeozoic times. 
No fossils are found in the marine deposits of Secondary and 
Tertiary age in the interior of the continent. No life, no slow 
movement of creeping things, disturbed the awful silence of 
that weird landscape of primaeval days, when India was 
represented by the central plateau and its northern fringe of 
Aravalli mountains. This, then, was the first stage of evolution. 
Never since the Palaeozoic era has this part of the continent 
been depressed beneath the sea. Over the extra-peninsular 
area, north of it and west, where now exist the regions of 
Baluchistan, Afghanistan, the valley of the Indus, and Raj- 
putana, with the great extension of the North-western Hima- 
layas, the tides of a wide and shallow sea ebbed and flowed. 
Then, in Tertiary times, followed the slow formation of the 
Gondwana beds, the gradual spreading out of sandy deposits, 
and the outlining of the leading features of Indian topography 
as we see them now. After the Palaeozoic era, and during the 
secondary stage of evolution, when India was probably con- 
nected with Africa by dry land and ocean currents swept from 
the Persian Gulf to the Aravallis, the ro'ck area extended 
over Assam and the Eastern Himalayas, while Burma, the 
North-western Himalayas, and the uplands beyond the Indus 
were still submarine, or undergoing alternations of elevation 
and depression. 

At the close of the Cretaceous period, the infinitely gentle 
process of sedimentary deposit and the dead repose of the 
geological world were rudely shaken. Then ensued a series of 
volcanic cataclysms, such as the eastern world bas probably 
never seen since. Two hundred thousand square miles of 
India's surface were covered with lava and volcanic deposits 
to a depth of thousands of feet, and the Deccan land- 
scape was shaped to its present outlines. As f the period 
of volcanic activity ceased, there commenced in the far 
north the throes of an upheaval, ^hich has gradually (acting 
through inconceivable ages) raised marine limestone of Num- 
mulitic age to a height of 20,000 feet above the sea, and 
resulted in the most stupendous mountain system of the 
world. The North-western Himalayas, Tibet, and Burma 
were gradually upraised and fashioned during this epoch; 
but there is evidence that Burma is a much more recent 
geographical feature than the North-western Himalayas, which 
were formidable mountains even in Pliocene ages, and were 
much as they are now in the days when the Siwalik fauna 
browsed in sub-Himalayan forests. The period of earth- 
movements app^rs to have culminated in the Pliocene 
period, but never to have subsided; for these movements 
are even now perceptibly re-shaping the ends of Indian 
physiography. The sea, which once flooded the area 
of the western frontier hills, Tibet, and Burma, was driven 
back ; and the marine rock deposits of the west were crushed 
and folded as we see them now, where their serried battalions 
of ridges, line upon line, present a forbidding front to the 
Indus valley. The formation of a great depression was more 
or less coincident with the upheaval of the mountains. At first 
it was a wide and deep partition between the Himalayas 
and the Peninsula, which the collected alluvium of ages 
gradually filled as it was brought by the action of the great 
river of the west, the Indus, from the whole Himalayan system. 
A comparatively recent development of these movements 
between Assam and the Rajmahal hills has formed the 
eastern or Gangetic depression ; and the final dividing of 
the waters of these two great river-systems (Indus and 
Ganges) may have occurred almost within historic time. No 
further change can now take place; for the rivers have 
marked out their own courses and adjusted their gradients to 
permanent beds. 

It is doubtful what happened within the limits of the 
Peninsula while these great movements and shiftings of level 
were in progress beyond it. Probably it was then that the 
connecting link between India and Africa was severed, and 
that the western continent, indicated by the coral archipelagoes 
of the Maldive and Laccadive islands, was submerged; but 
geological science inclines to the opinion that the elevation 
of the Western Ghats was comparatively recent. The steep- 
sided, narrow valleys of the Ghats, where the streams are 
still cutting their way back at their sources and gradually 
working their beds down to a permanent level, appear to 
be in the same stage of development as those or the extra- 
peninsular hills. One result of this process of evolution has 
been that nearly all the great rivers of Southern India take 
their rise in the western hills, and flow across the continent 
to the Bay of Beng^. The Narbada and the Tapti alone 
cut their way in deep channels westward; and there are 
indications farther south of a third great river which may 
once have found its way to the Indian Ocean across the 
continent, through what is known as the Palghat Gap to the 
south of the Nllgiris. The inference drawn by geologists from 
the general distribution of the hydrographical features of India 
seems to be that the continent, as we noyr know it, is but 
the eastern half of a fai wider land area, of which the main 
water-parting was nearly, if not absolutely, coincident with 
that of the Western Ghats ; and that the rivers flowing west- 
ward therefrom have disappeared with the land which they 
intersected. 

Throughout the more ancient regions of the Peninsula the 
rivers have eroded their channels to the point of adjust- 
ment between grade and rock resistance, and the level has 
become permanent. Thus the usual characteristic of Indian 
peninsular landscape is one of broad and open valleys with 
gentle slopes. Only the scarped edges of the sandstone 
outcrop maintain steep cliffs wherever they occur (as, for 
instance, at the southern edge of the Vindhyan sandstone 
area, overlooking the Narbada); and the variable resistance 
offered to denudation by the horizontal strata of the Deccan 
trap gives to Western India a certain predominance in square- 
cut rock edge and mountain wall which distinguishes it from 
the rest of the continent. 

In the extra-peninsular area the physical** characteristics of 
land surface have been shaped by later processes of geological 
evolution. Here the rivers are still to be found deepening 
their channels at the bottom of narrow, steep-sided valleys, 
frequently raising their beds by the deposit of silt and 
alluvium, filling up low levels, and spreading out broad plains. 
In the long process of nature's mountain-building the slow 
upheaval is often of later date than the river channels. 
The rivers, retaining their ancient courses, have cut for 
themselves narrow waterways across the strike of the hills, 
and reach the open plains of the Indian border through moun- 
tain gorges or narrow clefts and gateways of most remarkable 
aspect. 

India, thus rough-hewn by the hand o nature, had hardly 
added the finishing touches to her outlines when her beauty 
and her promise were recognized by man. For many ages 
India was not known, even to its early inhabitants, by any 
single epithet which would embrace all her tribes and races. 
The earliest recognizable term Vor In#a, Bhftratvarsha (the 
land of the Bharatas a noble warrior tribe which came from 
the north Y annli^H onlv to thf hasins nf thf Indus and the 

Ganges, and only to a part even of them. Central Aryan 
peoples, pouring through the highland passes into India, im- 
pelled southward by the crowd of competing humanity in 
High Asia, found their progress barred by the Indus, which 
appeared to them to be a vast expanse of waters, even 
as the sea ; and they called it by the ocean name of Sindhus, 
a name that still survives in the region bordering its lower 
reaches. The Persians called it Hendu in the Zend language ; 
the Greeks reduced the name to Indos, but they knew the 
native name, Sindhus. Eastern nations equally with the 
western knew India as the land of the Indus. The famous 
Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Tsiang (629-645 A. D.), decides that 
the rightful appellation is In-tu. Modern Persian, which makes 
it 'Hind/ has been adopted in the title of the Emperor, 
Kaisar-i-Hind, thus giving it a far wider application than its 
original significance, which was limited to a part of the Punjab 
and the basin of the Ganges. 

India can no longer be considered apart from that wide Extension 
hinterland of uplands and mountains which flank the low f 
depression of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Economically, politi- 
cally, and physically, the India of to-day must be held to 
include those outlying territories over which Indian administra- 
tion extends its control, even to the eastern and southern 
limits of Persia, Russia, Tibet, and China. By India we 
now imply not merely the wide continent which stretches 
southward from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, but also the 
vast entourage of mountainous plateaux and lofty ranges which 
remain an everlasting wall between it and the rest of Asia, 
and across which through all historic ages its land approaches 
have been found. 

We have, tlien, two great divisions of India to deal with. 
First, the extra-peninsular area of highland and lowland 
the recently elevated plains and peaks of Baluchistan, 
Afghanistan, Kashmir, the Himalayas, and Burma; and then 
the true Peninsula the ancient India of the dim geological 
past the india of old-world fable and of English history, 
which includes the g.eat depression of the Indo-Gangetic plains. 
The land approaches aad gateways to India have ever been 
on the west and north-west, either through the sterile rock 
ways of Southern Baluchistan to the Indus delta, or across the 
plains of Kandahar to the defiles of lower Sind, or by Ghazni 
to the Indus valley, or by Kabul to the Punjab. These have 
Always been the main channels for the flow of immigration 
from Central Asian steppes and valleys into the golden land of

==The Indian borderlands==
promise, as well as the narrow pathways for the commerce 
of centuries long past. If, in a future of railway developments 
and a rush of motor traffic, once again the land approaches to 
India rival those of the sea, then will some of these again 
become the highways of the eastern world, and we shall take 
our tickets in London for Herat, and change at Kandahar for 
Kabul or Karachi. 

There are other tracks and byways of the mountains 
through which from time to time men have made their 
perilous way to the plains of India. Routes exist by Leh and 
Kashmir, or by the gorges of the Sutlej from Tibet, or by 
the passes beyond Gilgit from the Pamirs, or by those of 
Sikkim from Lhasa ; but these are not the highways of a 
multitude. No rush of invasion from the west, or of Central 
Asiatic migration from the north, ever swept through them 
southwards, and none ever will. The stupendous dispositions 
of nature still overmatch the beautiful but delicate provisions 
of science, and we must perforce accept such roads as nature 
points out, and treat her indications with respect. 

It is therefore appropriate to commence with a general 
description of the most marked of the physical characteristics 
of that region of mountains and highlands which shuts off 
the Peninsula from the rest of Asia, and which we call the 
Indian borderlands. We will start from the arid shores of 
Baluchistan. 

Southern Baluchistan (including Makran) has been variously, 
and sometimes erroneously, described by many writers, from 
the days of Herodotus to those of the latest Census Report. 
A short but concise description of Makran has been given 
us by one of the greatest of the mediaeval Arab travellers, 
Ibn Haukal, and it is at least fairly accurate, if nof exhaustive. 
'Makran is a vast country, mostly desert/ says this writer. 
On the whole it is desert a dried and withered country 
having lost much of a former water supply which once rendered 
the greater part of it not only habitable but feftile. It is 
full of the relics of ancient irrigation works, dating back pro- 
bably to the era of Himyaritic cfccqmtion. Nevertheless 
Makran even now includes long but narrow valleys of very 
great fertility, where date palms flourish and fruit is 
cultivated amid fields of whea^ and maize. These valleys 
run mostly east and west, and they are bounded by long 
rugged ridges of barren rock, wrinkled and folded in parallel 
lines, and often packed in close formation across the wide 
spaces intervening between them. The drainage is often 
antecedent to the ridge formation, when it splits the axis 
of the folds, finding its way to the sea through narrow 
clefts and gorges. This structure is only a link in the long 
series of similajly elevated and folded anticlinals which 
distinguish the frontier formations generally. Throughout 
Baluchistan, from the Gomal river southwards, the frontier 
barrier is composed of lines of uplifted serrated strata from 
which the softer material has been denuded, filling up the 
intervening troughs, and leaving the edges of the harder rock 
in stiff and broken ranks, ever rising in altitude one behind the 
other, from the Indus valley plains to the great limestone back- 
bone of the SulaimSn system. Then they fall away in more 
gentle grades to the uneven plateau of the hinterland. Some- 
times the face of the rocky ridge fronting the eastern plains 
presents an unbroken level wall of great natural strength, 
such as no man can pass, for hundreds of miles. Such 
is the Kirthar range, stretching northward from the Karachi 
frontier to the passes of Kalat. At other points the transverse 
lines of drainage open up ways more or less constricted or 
narrow, ramped with the detritus of ages, and leading from 
one sloping valley to the next, through rock-guarded gateways, 
ever upward from the plains to the plateau. Such are the 
passes of MulaJ of Mashkat and Bolan. At one point, 
opposite to Jacobabad in Sind, a deep indentation, or bay, 
in the hills disturbs the symmetry of these parallel flexures, 
and drives them into curves, pushing back the line of ridges 
as with a wedge, piling them into huge massifs at the 
apex. This is the Gandava basin (Kachhi Gandava), which 
opens the way to Quetta. Quetta thus lies in an open 
plain, 5,500 feet above the sea, surrounded by gigantic peaks 
(Takatu, Chilian, and Murdar), the highest that are to be 
found south of the Himalayas.

But throughout the banded 
formation of hills which guard the lower Indus valley the 
same natural causes have produced the same shrinkage, or 
wrinkling? of the earth's crust; so that the same physical 
features are to be^ distinguished throughout, in spite of inter- 
ruptions and breaks an<j the alteration of the general axis or 
line of strike. Soutli of Quetta, about the latitude of Kalat, 
a division occurs in this banded gridiron formation. The out- 
side or easternmost ridges retain their original strike, and reach 
down southwards to {Jie sea? The inner ridges curve gradually 
westward, accentuating the curve as they proceed southwards, 
till they are running east and west in Makran, and so continue 
in rough lines of parallelism along the border of the Arabian 
Sea and through Persia to the north of the Persian Gulf. 
The Makran formation is but a link in the series. Between 
the parting of the ways, where the inner lines of ridge and 
furrow strike off westward from the outer, lies the little 
alluvial state of Las Bela. Here a comparatively small river, 
the Porali (the Arabis of the ancients), drains the triangular 
area, and has spread abroad alluvium sufficient to ensure 
a fairly prosperous agricultural landscape. 

It should be clear from this brief outline of the general 
formation of the frontier hills of Baluchistan that all the main 
lines of communication are shaped by the valleys, passing 
through the endless troughs enclosed within the lines of rocky 
serrated ridges ; and thus it is that from the Persian frontier to 
Quetta routes may be found which encounter no formidable 
water-partings and cross no difficult passes. It follows also 
(although not quite so obviously) that from Kandahar in 
Afghanistan to the sea southwards equally easy passages are 
to be found, involving little or none of the constructive diffi- 
culties which have ever beset those lines of railway which take 
the frontier hill formation at right angles, cutting across the axis 
of the ridges. 
===Northern Baluchistan===

Northern North of Makran (which is but a maritime province, barely 
Baluchis- IOQ mj j es j n w jd t h^ north-west of Las Bela, and west of 
Kalat, is a basin of inland drainage : flat, stony, sand-wasted 
and bare for the most part, but cultivated in patches, gently 
subsiding to a level of about 2,000 feet above the sea, more 
or less intersected with dry stone-dusted hills, and generally 
presenting the aspect of broad wastes of undulating sand- 
dunes, or dry alluvial flats with a scanty sprinkling of low 
scrub. The intermittent drainage of this generally desert 
country passes into swamps, or lagoons, which viden their 
borders, or restrict them, according to the changing inflow, 
and are intensely saline at low ebb. The MSshkel Hamun 
(or swamp) receives the waters of the Rakhshan, which 
rises near Kalat to the north-east, as well as thase of the 
Dizak, which drains the volcanic regions f to the north-west, 
east of the great Kirman desert. Jnto the Mashkel also 
drain the scanty waters of Kharan, the r home of the desert- 
bred Nausherwani tribes. The Lora Hamun (not 100 miles 
removed from the Mashkel) receives the river of Pishin, The 
wide outspread of the Seistan H&nuns on the Perso-Afghn 
border, north of BaluchistSn) receives the full tide of the 
Helmand river (rising near Kabul), as well as the waters of 
many streams from the north-east intersecting the highlands of 
Central Afghanistan. These Seistan Hamuns are provided with 
an overflow outlet in the Gaod-i-Zirreh, an extensive salt swamp 
the north-eastern edge of which is only a few miles from the 
Helmand at the point where it bends northward. Thus the 
Helmand pours *its flood-waters first towards the south-west 
from Kabul, passing to the north of Kandahar; then due 
north to the Seistan lagoons ; and finally, reversing direction in 
its overflow, turns them back from these lagoons in a counter- 
march on their northerly course to find final refuge in the 
Gaod-i-Zirreh. The greater part of this great inland basin with 
no sea outlet (which is only one instance of a common feature 
in Asiatic physiography) is desert or waste land, spreading itself 
on either side the Helmand into Southern Baluchistan and the 
Kandahar province of Afghanistan. The green valley of the 
Helmand, which intersects it, receives no tributary stream 
from north or south for the last 200 miles of its course. It is 
only a narrow ribbon of fertility, dividing the flat barrenness of 
Chakansur from the waterless tracts north of the Koh-i-Amir 
and the Lora river. But the latter river now feeds the lately 
developed luxuriance of Pishln ; and many of the upper affluents 
of the Helmand within the borders of Afghanistan, as well as the 
streams which run southwards from Herat in their course from 
their highland sources to the Seistan swamp, pass through regions 
of fair abundance, where the wheat-fields are intersected with 
poplar-shaded canals, and orchards cluster in thick growth 
around the villages. 
===Southern Baluchistan===
Southern Baluchistan is the home of the true Baloch, 
descended from an Arab ancestry, still largely nomadic in 
his proclivities, proud of his race and lineage, and redeemed 
from barbarism by chivalrous instincts derived from his 
forefather% Together with the Arab, there are Kurdish 
peoples, with later Persian and Dravidian races, intermixed 
with an original Tajik (or ancient Persian) stock. But there 
are no Pathans, or Pashtu-speaking peoples, in Southern 
Baluchistan. Northern Baluchistan (say from Quetta north- 
wards) is Pathan, ^nd it differs from the southern districts in 
tjiat it is more mountainous (for it is more restricted to 
the Indus border country) and less desert in its character. 
The Sulaiman ranges, which traverse this northern section, 
culminate in magnificent peaks beset with stupendous 
limestone crags. The valliys are more cultivated, the wild 
olive abounds, and the slopes of the hills are often forest- 
covered. 
===the pathan frontier=== 
The From Baluchistan northward (the political boundary is the 
Pathan Gomal river) there stretch the narrow irregular border 
districts of Pathan highlands (now brought under the 
political control of the chief of the lately-formed North- West 
Frontier Province), full of uncivilized tribes, jvho interpose an 
independent buffer-land between Afghanistan proper and the 
red line of British India. This country is all mountainous, 
and through it there run the chief passes to Afghanistan : 
namely, the Gomal, the Tochi, the Kurram, and the Khyber, in 
succession from the south. Certain physical characteristics 
are the common property of all these passes. There is little 
of the ordered tectonic regularity of the Baluchistan border 
mountain system in the Pathan hills of the north-west. 
Waziristan, immediately north of the Gomal, forms a more 
or less distinct orographical feature, geographically uncon- 
nected with the outlying spurs of the Safed Koh on the 
north, or the Sulaiman ridges on the south. Its rugged 
ilex-covered spurs centre on the giant peaks of Plrghal and 
Shuidar, overlooking the plains of Afghanistan towards 
Ghazni. To the north of the Waziristan mountain group 
lie the long-extended foothills of the great transverse Safed 
Koh range, which stretches its length almost due east and west, 
parting the valleys of the Kurram and the Kabul almost at 
right angles to our frontier. Its southern fcffshoots enclose 
the head of the Kurram, and form the dividing ridges 
between the Kurram and the Tochi. The magnificent pro- 
portions of the Safed Koh, its altitude, its severely straight 
yet rugged outlines, distinguish it among the minor ranges 
of Northern India. It rivals the Sularman range, crowned with 
the historical Takht-i-Sulaiman, in the grandeur of its array 
of lofty peaks. The Kabul river, at the northern foot of the 
Safed Koh, absorbs the drainage of the southern slopes of the 
Hindu Kush, which, from the far north, extends its long level 
spurs parting the waters of many historic rivers, among which 
are the Kunar (or the river of Chitral), the Panjkora, and the 
Swat. All the mountains to the north of Kabul are* but out- 
liers and spurs of the Hindu Kush, which cities round, enclos- 
ing Kabul itself and all the arteries ofrfhe Kabul river-basin in 
its embrace, ere it strikes away to the west, and merges into 
another great mountain system, which parts Southern Afghan- 
istan from Afghan-Turkistan. It would perhaps be geographi- 
cally correct to include the Safed % Koh ^ an extension of an 
arm of the Hindu Kush ; and to note that the Kabul river 
breaks across the chain, splitting it apart in its course between 

Dakka and the plains. But there is none of the weakness 
of a long-extended offshoot about the Safed Koh. It main- 
tains all the magnificent proportions of an independent 
range, and it is thus that it is generally recognized. One re- 
sult of this distribution and structure of the Pathan moun- 
tain borderland is that the drainage lines supporting the 
routes which traverse it (and which represent the extent of 
British occupation) are not structurally similar to the passes 
of the south. It is true that they traverse narrow mountain 
gateways as they approach the plains of India, and that they 
are usually enclosed by steep-sided hills ; but they frequently 
expand into comparatively wide alluvial plains, with a gentle 
slope through which the rivers wind and twist in many 
channels, and seldom (until they reach the ridges which 
bound the plains of the Indus) split a waterway for themselves 
across the axis of the hills. There is more lateral expansion 
(especially in the valleys of the Tochi and the Kurram) and 
less of defile, or gorge-gripped formation, in the course of these 
rivers from the plateau to the Indus. 
==Afghanistan ==
Behind and beyond the band of border mountains lies   
Afghanistan, less approachable now than it was fifty lslarK 
years ago, and still the greatest Muhammadan kingdom 
of the world after Turkey. Afghanistan slopes gently 
downwards from north-east to south-west, but never falls 
below the 1,500 feet line of altitude above sea-level, which 
is about the elevation of the ultimate bourne of the Helmand 
in the Gaod-i-Zirreh swamp. In the north-east the level 
of the valleys is about 4,000 or 5,000 feet, and the crests 
of the Hindu Kush mountains tower above them to 20,000 
feet; but there are no great altitudes in the south-west, and 
the western borders of the country maintain a general average 
of abouf 3,000 feet from Herat to Kandahar. Four great 
river-basins absorb nearly the whole drainage of Afghanistan : 
namely, the Kabul in the north-east ; the Oxus (including the 
Oxus desert) on the north ; the Helmand in the centre or 
south-wfcst ; and the Indus, which takes that border fringe 
of river affluent rising to the west of the independent 
borderland. To this *nust be added the minor basin of the 
Hari Riid, the river of Herat. 

A remarkable feature about Afghan hydrography is the com- 
paratively small amount of it which has connexion with the sea, 
or even with the O*us or the Indus rivers. The desert tracts 
south of the Oxus, and those about Merv, absorb nearly all that 
waters Afghan-Turkistan. The desert of the Helmand takes 
the inflow of the many streams which traverse the central 
highlands; and but few of those which wind through the 
gorges and gullies of the Sulaiman hills ever actually join the 
Indus, being absorbed before they reach that river. The 
Kabul river alone, with its great northern influx^rom the glacier- 
bound ridges and rifts of the Hindu Kush, carries a full tide to 
the Indus ; and even the Kabul river and the river of Herat 
(the Hari Rud), and many another promising source of 
fertility and strength to the land, often run dry in their upper 
courses at seasons when their waters are carried by a thousand 
minor channels into an artificial system of irrigation. There 
are no more expert irrigation engineers in the world than the 
Afghans. They utilize every drop of water when water is 
scarce. They outwit the Persians, and rival the Chinese, 
in their practical knowledge of the art of making green things 
grow in dry places. 

The northern province of Afghanistan, the province of Kabul, 
pushes itself into the very heart of the mountain masses which 
buttress the Pamirs and hide the wild valleys of Kafiristan. The 
Hindu Kush is the range par excellence of Northern Afghanis- 
tan, from the point of its parting with the ice-bound Muztagh to 
its junction with the dividing ridges of the Band-i-Turkistan 
and Koh-i-Baba, where it overlooks the plateau beyond which 
lie the deserts and oases of the Oxus basirf. Rugged and 
elevated as the Hindu Kush may be, it is not Himalayan in its 
mountain characteristics. There are few peaks of quite first- 
class significance (the most majestic and the most prominent 
of them are to be found based on its flanking spurs), and there 
are several depressions across which comparatively easy by- 
ways connect the north and south. It is not the Hindu Kush 
watershed itself which forms the northern barrier to India, 
but the inconceivably difficult approaches to which its passes 
lead. The most famous of all the Hindu Kush passes (his- 
torically) is that which is said to derive its name (Hindu 
Kusht, or 'dead Hindu') from the fate which once befell 
a Hindu force on its summit, and which is but one ofa group 
leading from the Oxus basin to Kabul. Thi^has indeed been 
a veritable highway of the nations. Ttys way came Alexander 
with his Greek following, and it would take f a chapter to record 
the successive tides of human migration (Scyth and Mongol) 
which have swept through those frozen gateways to the north 
of Kabul. We can only note en passant ^hat such history is 
very unlikely to repeat itself. From the point which is geographi- 
cally the western termination of the Hindu Kush system (a little 
to the south-west of Kabul) long spurs and offshoots descend, 
radiating slightly west and south-west from their base through 
Central Afghanistan, and forming that series of inconceivably 
wild and inhospitable uplands which are the home of the Hazara 
and kindred tribes of the Chahar Aimak. It was within these 
hills that the ancient capital of Ghor once stood, and it is 
at the base of these long-extended offshoots that some of 
the richest land in Afghanistan now exists. The physical 
characteristics of Baluchistan the dreary monotony of stone- 
covered waste, with scanty scrub and struggling vegetation 
clothing the hills with green patchwork are not to be found 
north of its south-western deserts, nor in Afghanistan, where 
the northern hills are rich with verdure, and their pine-clad 
summits are but the prelude to the yet richer mountain 
landscape of Kashmir. 

Of the 246,000 square miles which are included in 
the kingdom of Afghanistan probably three-fourths are 
mountainous. Kabul, at a height of 5,780 feet above sea- 
level, is enclosed among the spurs and foothills of that 
part of the Hindu Kush which was once known to the 
Greeks as Paropamisus. Herat, at the lower altitude of 
3,026 feet, is still overshadowed by mountains, which close 
in the long narrow valley of the Hari Rud like the sides 
of a trough, Kandahar (3,462 feet above the sea) is less 
dominated by mountain formation. The hills about Kandahar 
partake of the characteristics of the Baluch mountains, breaking 
into scattered straight ridges with scarped flanks and serrated 
crests. The valleys of the Kabul basin are usually narrow, 
winding between the mountain folds or shadowed deep in 
cliff-bound gorges ; but where these gorges occur at the outlet 
of the valley, they not infrequently cause an accumulation of 
alluvium &nd a widening of the open plain above them, which 
affords opportunity for the existence of clusters of villages and 
a fair spread of cultivation. The Kohdaman valley, north of 
the city of Kabul ; the valley of Laghman, from which the 
Kabul river emerges by the narrows of Domandi; and the 
valley of the same t river near Dakka, above the narrow outlet 
of its passage through the Mohmand hills, are instances of 
this formation. South of Kabul, beyond the basin of the 
Kabul river, there are many extensive valleys, teeming with 
villages and highly cultivated. The great (and almost level) 
high road from Kabul to ^Kandahar passes through a fairly 
rich country, a land of irrigated fields and green pastures. 
The valleys of Chardeh, MaidSn, Wardak, and Kohistan are 
visions of luxuriant beauty in the fruit-ripening months of 
Northern Afghanistan. The most productive areas, however, 
are undoubtedly those of the west and south. Herat is 
the centre of a comparatively restricted valley, which is of 
exceptional fertility; but the area which gan be brought 
under crops by the blue-coated Tajik husbandman with 
his triangular spade is limited by the water supply of the 
Hari Rud and the steep slopes of the enclosing mountain 
wall. It is probable that the richest districts of Afghanistan 
are those north of Kandahar, which are watered by the 
Arghandab and the lower Helmand; but they are also the 
least known. 

The geographical position of Herat with reference to Central 
Asia and India is of peculiar interest. Near Herat there 
exists the only break in the otherwise continuous and formid- 
able wall of mountains which traverses Asia from the Bering 
Strait to the Caspian Sea. Near Herat it is possible to pass 
from the Russian outposts and the Russian railway system to 
India without encountering any formidable altitude and this 
is possible nowhere else. 

===The hinterland of Kashmir===
The bin- Turning again to the north of Afghanistan and the borders 
^ and of of Kashmir, we find a thin arm of territory reaching outwards 
on the extreme north-east. This arm includes the Little 
Pamir, which here interposes as an Afghan* buffer between 
Russia and the hinterland of Kashmir. The southern boundary 
of the Little Pamir is formed by the crest of the Hindu Kush, 
which unites at the extreme eastern limits of the Pamir with 
two other gigantic mountain ranges : one, running northward, 
separates Russia from China ; the other, running south-east 
(under the name of Muztagh), divides again into two mighty 
arms eastward and south-eastward, and encloses between 
them the rugged and elevated horn of North-western Tibet, 
parting those desolate uplands from Chinese-Turkistan on the 
north, and from the trans-Indus borderlands of Kashmir 
on the south-west. 

The square block of Kashmir territory (excluding the Chitral 
hinterland, which is not politically an integra^part of the State) 
is traversed across its width by the d<jpp trough of the Indus 
river, which here runs from south-east to nt>rth-west, sometimes 
sliding over broad shingly beds, sometimes breaking into 
cataracts amid vast mountain solitudes. Changing suddenly 
to a south-westerly course, in abou? 75 E^ long, (a little to the 
east of Gilgit), it makes its way to the plains of Peshawar 
through mountain districts so wild and unapproachable as to 
be even yet only partially explored. To the west of this part 
of its course lies the Gilgit extension of Kashmir territory, and 
the passes therefrom to the Pamirs and to Chitral. Farther 
south are the upper valleys of Buner, Swat, Bajaur, and all the 
wild borderland of hills which lies north of Peshawar and east 
of Kafiristan. No part of the Himalayas lies beyond the 
Indus, either west or north. To the west we are immediately 
confronted with the long offshoots of the Hindu Kush. To 
the north we meet another system, the Muztagh and its 
Karakoram extension. The great bend of the Indus encloses 
the Himalayas on the north-west, as the bend of the Brahma- 
putra enfolds them on the south-east; the two rivers starting 
from nearly the same central point, and forming deep troughs 
at the back of the Himalayan system during their earlier and 
glacier-fed stages of existence. They may be considered as 
the natural drains of a gigantic ice-bound wall, pouring their 
glacial floods in opposite directions to either side cf India. 
Their deeply eroded valleys are, however, but scratches 
on the vast surface of the elevated region of which the 
Himalayas with their multiplied bands of ridge and range 
form the abutment. The Himalayas are the wrinkled and 
corrugated southern edge of the great Tibetan plateau, cor- 
responding in many of their most important geographical 
features with the Kuen-lun abutment on its northern edge, 
and not separated from the plateau by the accident of the 
Indus and Brahmaputra drains. 
===The Himalayas===
The Native State of Kashmir includes about 200 miles of the 
most elevated crests of that magnificent mountain system, the 
Muztagh. Dominating these crests are such gigantic peaks as 
Godwin Austen (28,300 feet), Gasherbrum (28,100), and the 
wonderful white pinnacle of Rakaposhi, north of Gilgit, which 
with the comparatively modest altitude of 25,561 feet combines 
the grace of the Matterhorn with the majesty of Mont Blanc. 
To the south of the Indus we have the initial peaks of the 
great Himalayan ranges (notably of the Zaskar), which 
stretch t^eir length through nearly 1,000 miles from the 
massif of Nanga Parbat (26,182 feet) to Kinchinjunga 
(28,000) and Everest (20,000), crowned with a glittering array 
of magnificent snowy peaks, and unbroken save by the deep- 
cleft passages of the upper courses of the Sutlej and Gogra, 
which form the mighty northern barrier between India and 
Tibet. 

The Kashmir ot the British holiday-maker is, however, The Vale of 
not the Kashmir of the Indus basin, but of the basin of the KashmTr - Jhelum, centring on the capital, Srlnagar, and lying spread 
between the Zaskar range on the north and the Pir Panjal 
offshoot on the south. This is but a comparatively small 
section of Kashmir territory, and it owes its marvellous 
fertility and its unapproachable beauty to the geographical 
distribution of the surrounding hills. These close in the 
passage of the Jhelum at Baramula, where it bends southwards 
when making for the Rawalpindi plains, and thus vast stores 
of alluvial wealth have been snatched from the river to spread 
on either side in gentle grades and sweet smooth slopes. 
The cold bleak highlands of Deosai and Ladakh, beyond the 
Zaskar, and the open, wind-swept, dry-salted solitudes of the 
north-eastern plains adjoining the Tibetan border, are not 
much traversed by Europeans, although the passes leading 
to Gilgit i.e. the Tragbal and the Burzil, the Astor valley and 
Bunji are now tolerably familiar. The beauty of Kashmir 
is the beauty of its western and southern districts, where 
Nanga Parbat looks across the deep-shadowed valley of the 
Indus to Rakaposhi, or where Haramukh is reflected in the 
purple waters of the Wular Lake. The physiography of 
Kashmir in relation to the Peninsula of India is economically 
most important, inasmuch as the great reservoirs from which 
is drawn the water supply that fertilizes the vast flat plains 
of the land of the five rivers are contained therein. Here are 
born the infant streams which feed the Indus, the Jhelum, 
the Chenab, the Ravi, and, to a great extent, the Sutlej also. 
Kashmir is the great natural storehouse on which the wealth 
of a third of India depends. Economically, again, the 
climatic conditions of the country are important; for it is 
here that European colonization is to succeed, if it succeeds 
anywhere in India. The English race has never yet 
taken root in India, but it seems possible that vith more 
facilities for occupation Kashmir might become a white 
man's country. 

The Eastward of Kashmir, across the wide frontier of Northern 

Hima- India, the Himalayas continue to part India fro.n Tibet. 
From the great central range of snow peaks to the Indo- 
Gangetic plain there exists a width of about 100 miles of 
mountains, comprising many minor ranges, steep-sided and 
deeply eroded by river action, distributed with a general 
approximation to parallelism with the strike of the great 
central range, but often highly irregu^r in conformation. 
Where these ranges have a northern aspect, they are usually 
forest-covered to their summits. On the southern slopes, 
the folds of the hills are often bare and dry, subject to forest 
fires and the depredations of flocks and herds. Wherever 
the winter sun touches these outer hills, there, if the slopes 
be not prohibitive, is the commencement of terraced culti- 
vation, which is often carried up through thousands ot 
feet until the whole mountain-side appears to be but a 
succession of staircases with green-carpeted steps. Under 
British protection the cultivation of the Himalayan valleys, 
around such centres as the hill stations, is increasing rapidly. 
The magnificence of the forest scenery of the Himalayas, 
crowned by the everlasting snows, is indescribable. The scarlet 
masses of the rhododendron woods in May are the glory of the 
hills about Simla ; the sub-tropical forest growth of tree-ferns 
and bamboos which clothes the feet of Kinchinjunga strikes 
the key-note of landscape beauty in the valleys beyond Dar- 
jeeling. 

From the southern foothills of the sub-Himalayas there The Si- 
extends a width of high-level territory, flanked by an outer w * lik s. 
ridge of recent formation known as the Siwaliks a feature 
which is common to Himalayan structure throughout most of 
the north-western extension of the system. The Siwaliks are 
famous in geological annals for the wealth of palaeontological 
evidence which they have given to the world. Physically they 
are but a line of broken and disintegrating hills which mark 
the first step upward from the plains, enclosing an area 
of great richness lying between them and the Himalayan 
foothills. These upland valleys skirting the mountains are 
usually called Dun, and they include some of the most 
fertile and most beautiful of Indian lowland formation in 
the north-west. 

The Central Himalayas are bordered by densely forest- The Tarai. 
covered tracts called Tarai, or (on the extreme east) Duars. 
The Tarai or Duar forests are generally reckoned to be 
the most deadly of all the fever-haunted jungles of North- 
ern India, and yet they cover many strange relics of 
ancient civilized development. Within their embrace, im- 
mediately south of* Nepal, are hidden the buried remains 
of some of the most ftftnous among mediaeval Buddhist 
cities. 

The physical aspects of the Himalayas are only partially Physical 
known to us. The Districts of ^Cumaun and Garhwal, adjoining 
Kashmlr in the Northwestern Himalayas, and the State of layas. 
Sikkim in the south-east, are the best-known regions of this 
stupendous mountain system. It cannot be said that we 
are acquainted with more than the main features of Nepal, 
or that we know much of the physiography of the eastern 
hills which cradle the affluents of the Brahmaputra. With 
a climate and vegetation ranging between arctic and tropical, 
the conditions of life within the valleys overshadowed by the 
gigantic peaks of the Himalayas are infinitely varied. Even 
the accidents of position in relation to the sun's rays are 
recognized by the natives of the hills as requiring special terms 
to denote them, so obvious is their influence in moulding 
human form and character. Within the limits of a single 
valley (where there may, however, be space enough to accom- 
modate the whole European Alpine system) there will often 
be found varieties of human type which might almost indicate 
divergency of origin. 

===Himalayan===
The main passes across the Himalayas may be divided into 

three groups. Firstly, the Shipki group, which marks the 
line of connexion with Tibet afforded by the passage of the 
Sutlej river from the highlands beyond the northern flank of 
the Himalayas to the plains of India. This group includes 
a route which has for many years been regarded as the com- 
mercial high road between India and Tibet. Probably it 
originally determined the position of Simla, and with the 
expansion of Simla developed into more than a mere 
mountain track. It is for a considerable part of its length 
a well-engineered road, but as a trade route it has never 
proved a success. Secondly, there is the Almora group, which 
determined the position of NainI Tal and Almora, and lies 
to the north of them. Across these tracks a certain amount of 
traffic is always maintained, chiefly by the agency of sheep as 
transport animals. A little to the east of the Almora group 
is the opening through the hills effected by the chief 
affluent of the Gogra river, which rises not far frdm the birth- 
place of the Indus, the Brahmaputra, and the Sutlej that 
remarkable hydrographical focus contiguous to the Manasa- 
rowar Lakes. The third group crosses the northern barriers 
of the State of Sikkim from Darjeeling to Southerfj Tibet and 
Lhasa. Thus all the main passes of the Himalayas strike 
into the elevated table-lands of TibeJ, even including those 
which belong more correctly to the trans-Himalayan area 
centring on Leh, the Ladakh capital in the far north-west, 
as well as the Bhutan passes of the far east. None of them 
is passable except for trade purposes; none of them at 
present contributes anything material to the commercial 
prosperity of India. 
===Hill stations===

The chief hill stations of the Himalayas are naturally Hill 
connected with the chief roads intersecting the moun- 8tations 
tains. Murree is the post-town for Kashmir. Simla points 
the way to the Shipki group of passes, Nairn Tal and 
Darjeeling to otjier groups. Mussoorie and other minor 
sanitaria depend largely on their accessibility from the 
plains, or on the exigencies of military administration, for 
their existence. The geographical position of Simla is inter- 
esting. The town (or rather the church around which the 
town gathers) is on the parting of the waters between the 
Sutlcj and the Jumna. It thus marks the great divide of 
the Indo-Gangetic plain, dominating one of the most remark- 
able features of Indian physiography. 
===The north eastern border land===
The borderland of India is rounded off on the east by Burma. The north- 
The Himalayas may be said geographically to terminate in the u^" 1 
north-west at the great bend of the Indus. Similarly they are land, 
enclosed on the south-east by the great bend of the Brahma- 
putra. Between the sinuous curves of these two mighty rivers 
the mountains are enfolded ; beyond them are mountains 
again, but of different physical conformation, if not altogether 
of different physical aspect. 

Among the many physical features of the Indian frontier 
that may be destined to play an important part in Indian 
history, is the grerft highway of the Brahmaputra valley from the 
plateau of Tibet to the plains of Assam. This magnificent 
natural outlet of the glacier and snow-fed drainage of the north 
is still a matter of speculative interest to geographers, although 
enough of it is known to justify the expectation that it may yet 
be recognized as one of the world's highways. Near the fron- 
tier station of Sadiya in Upper Assam three important streams 
unite to form the Brahmaputra of the plains. From the north 
flows the Bihang, now known to be the continuation of the 
Tsan-po of Tibet. From the north-east the Dibang makes its 
placid way, and from the east the Luhit. The two latter are 
of more than local significance ; for the valley of the Dibang 
points the* way to the richest of Tibetan provinces, and the 
Luhit leads by a cqmparatively short, but most difficult, route 
directly to the borderland of China. But it is the Dihang or 
Brahmaputra valley, with its possibilities for agricultural de- 
velopment in the cultivation of tea, coffee, and fruit, its gra- 
dually ascending grades to the great uplands, its wealth of 
villages about the lovjer reaches, and the magnificent series 
of falls which form an abrupt step to its upper levels, that 
calls chiefly for the practical interest of the explorer and the 
engineer. It is here, however, that we encounter the most deter- 
mined opposition from a small group of utterly barbarous sub- 
Himalayan tribes (the Abors, Mishmis, &c.), who block the way 
between India and Tibet, and with whom political relations 
have hitherto been found impossible unfcss supported by 
armed force. 

Burma. Northern Burma is a comparatively new creation, belonging 

to recent geological periods, but parted from the recent up- 
heavals of the north-west and of Tibet by the great mass of the 
South-eastern Himalayas, and from the Gangetic plain by the 
hills of Assam. The Assamese hills and plateaux (peopled by 
Garos, Khasis, Nagas, and other Indo-Chinese tribes) are pro- 
bably a part of the ancient mainland of Jurassic times, which 
extended from the Eastern Himalayas to Africa. The Gangetic 
depression is of later date, but palaeontological evidence does 
not indicate that any wide strait ever existed between the Pen- 
insula and the Himalayas in the ancient distribution of land 
and sea. The character of the Assam hills denotes a result 
of tectonic force different from that which has folded the hills of 
Northern Burma in parallel and narrow flexures. There are 
comparatively wide undulating upland^ with cliff-bound edges 
and spurs radiating therefrom in irregular formation, and ex- 
hibiting an absence of that meridional strike in the axis of main 
ridges which is the distinguishing feature of the Burmese hills 
flanking the Chindwin affluent of the Irrawaddy, or rounding 
the bend of the Brahmaputra. These newer mountain forma- 
tions, springing from the eastern extension of the great Tibetan 
plateau, almost appear to have been constrained to adjust them- 
selves to a pre-existing mass of the Eastern Himalayas, folding 
and curving like the waves of an approaching sea, wave after 
wave in long sinuous lines breaking against the containing wall 
of the Brahmaputra and reaching down the western coast of 
Burma, till they terminate southwards in the Arakan Yoma, 
which parts the basin of the Irrawaddy from the narrow littoral 
regions east of the Bay of Bengal. So stiff, so steep, and so 
densely forest-covered are these solid waves, thaft the path 
across them connecting Upper Assam with Burma is one of 
abnormal difficulty, and so far has proved an insurmountable 
stumbling-block to railway engineering. But beyond them, 
to the east, the Chindwin and the Upper Irrawaddy form 
delightful valleys, full of cultivation and the gladness of 
life, possessing a good climate and meich landscape beauty; 
ever presenting new openings and fresh inducements for eco- 
nomic enterprise. All Northern Burma is mountainous, and 
the Irrawaddy occasionally narrows to a much-restricted chan- 
nel between the hills. It is, however, usually a broad and 
noble stream, island-studded and placid, reflecting the deep 
masses of broad-leafed vegetation, and the gracious spires and 
towers of Burmes^ pagodas. An interesting feature of the geo- 
graphy of Upper Burma is the source of the Irrawaddy. In 
Eastern Tibet there occurs one of those hydrographic origins 
or centres, from which the infant affluents of great rivers take 
their parting ways, such as we have referred to in Western 
Tibet near the Manasarowar Lakes. Here the Hoang Ho (the 
Yellow river) and the Di Chu, or Yangtsi Kiang of China, start 
on their eastward courses. Here (or near here) also the Nam 
Chu, or Mekong (the river of Siam), takes its rise. Here, too, is 
the source of the Giama Nu Chu, which is undoubtedly one of 
the main rivers which traverse Burma from north to south. Is 
this the same as the Salween ? or is it but the commencement 
of the Nmai Kha, the eastern affluent of the Irrawaddy, joining 
it above the railway terminus at Myitkyina, 150 miles north of 
Bhamo ? Indian surveyors now connect it with the Salween, 
but its course cannot be said to be absolutely determined. 

The province of Upper Burma includes six administrative 
divisions, two of which are the Northern and Southern Shan 
States. The Shan country rises to the east of the Irrawaddy 
valley, and is described by every traveller who has visited it as 
a land of great promise. Orchid-bedecked forests and undulat- 
ing wheat-covered plateaux, possessing a varied and productive 
soil, are its chief characteristics ; but the intersecting drainage 
lines are deep and steeply enclosed, making it a difficult country 
to traverse, and rendering the cost of railway construction almost 
prohibitive. Lower Burma, with a more humid atmosphere 
and lower levels, does not enjoy the climatic advantages of the 
northern province. The teeming soil of the great deltas of the 
Irrawaddy and the Salween, with a vast commercial network 
centring on Rangoon and Moulmein, ensure its wealth on 
easy terms of agricultural labour ; but the broad flat lowlands 
and the steamy enervating atmosphere will ever render it 
inimical to European existence. 

Such then, in very bref review, are the general physical 
characteristics of the borderlands of India borderlands 
which can never again be left out of account in dealing 
with Indian physiography. The material wealth of India 
largely depends on tjieir capacity for the storage of that 
water supply which carries fertility to its broad plains; 
the strength of India depends on the nature of the bul- 
works which they afford for frontier defence; the future of 
India depends on the manner in which we maintain those 
defences, guarding the gateways and portals of the hills, 
and preventing those landward irruptions which have so often 
changed her dynasties and given a new ethnographic strain 
to her people. 
==The indo gangetic depression==
The Peninsula of India is parted from the northern area 
UC of upheaval, of which the Himalayas are the southern revetment, 
sion. by a broad interval of low flat country known as the Indo- 
Gangetic depression. In some respects this is the most 
important physical feature of India. Within the basin of the 
Ganges have ever been founded the chief kingdoms of the 
plains ; the most ancient cities ; the earliest centres of civil- 
ization, of industry, and of wealth. The mighty river has 
silently worked through the ages in an unceasing process of 
regeneration of the soil, spreading life and strength abroad 
among the millions who venerate its sanctifying agency and 
purify themselves from sin in the turbid flood which laps the 
temple steps of Hardwar and Benares. From the delta of 
the Ganges to the delta of the Indus this strange wide region 
of depression extends. Within it is not to be found a boulder 
(not even a pebble) to break the uniform regularity of its 
alluvial surface. It is these heat-stricken plains, rather than 
the mountains of the north or the plateiux of the south, 
which have given India its colouring in history, and from which 
was derived the popular conception of the India of last 
century. Since the geological era in which occurred the 
parting of the waters, when the Indus affluents first started 
westwards and those of the Ganges turned their currents 
to the east, the physical character of the two basins has 
rapidly diverged. 

All of the Gangetic basin is within the influence of 
the south-west monsoon rains ; and the thick humid 
atmosphere of steamy effervescence, which is the charac- 
teristic of Lower Bengal and of those provinces to the 
south which are watered by the MahanadI, makes all the 
land green with the luxuriance of vegrtation. From the 
extreme north-western extension af the East Indian rail- 
way system to the delta of the Ganges and Calcutta, the 
traveller passes through nothing but a wide area of crop- 
producing land, broken by clustering groves of mango, 
tamarind, and other trees, giving place gradually to long 
lines and avenues of palms bordering the fresher verdure 
of irrigated rice-fields in the lower reaches of the valley 

The prevailing evidence of agricultural wealth becomes 
almost oppressive in its monotony. Where the majestic 
flood of the Brahmaputra leaves the mountain-bordered 
valley of Assam, losing sight of the forest-clad slopes of the 
Himalayas and the far-off snows amid which it had its 
cradle, to pour its mighty volume of silt-bearing waters 
into confluence with the Ganges, there India widens out 
into an endless panorama of irrigated fertility : a wide 
network of canals ; an endless procession of picturesque 
villages containing a swarming population. Very gradually 
this merges southwards into the deadly swamps and flats of 
the Sundarbans. The rainfall is certain, and it is abundant. 
It is at the head of the Bay of Bengal, where the vapour- 
bearing currents of the monsoon first strike the edge of the 
Assam hills south of the Brahmaputra, that the greatest rainfall 
in the world is recorded. It occasionally amounts to over 
sixty feet in the year. 
===The ganges and the jumna===
The Ganges, assisted by its great tributaries the Jumna, The 
the Gogra, and the Gandak drains the southern slopes of the 
Himalayas from Simla eastward, carrying fertility and wealth Jumna. 
to the plains of Bengal. Tracing magnificent curves through 
the flat lowlands, the four rivers have for centuries combined 
to form an overruling factor in the development of the Indian 
races. No river on the surface of the globe can compare with 
the Ganges in sanctity. P>om her source to her outflow in the 
Bay of Bengal every yard of the river is sacred. To bathe in 
the Ganges at stated festivals is to wash away sin ; to die and 
be cremated on the river bank is to attain eternal peace ; even 
to ejaculate the name 'Ganga' when afar from her banks is 
sufficient to atone for the misdeeds of several previous stages 
of human existence. 

The total length of the Ganges is about 1,550 miles. Rising 
in the Central Himalayas, the glacial ice-cave of its birth is 
known as the Gaimukh or Cow's Mouth. Here the Ganges 
is but an infant stream (locally known as the Bhagirathi), 
27 feet b r oad and 15 inches deep, at an elevation of 13,800 
feet above sea-level. For the first 189 miles of its course 
above HardwSr the Bhagirathi is a snow-fed mountain torrent, 
rapidly developing into a river of broad shoals, long deep 
pools, and occasional rapids. The great system of irrigation 
which commences at Hardwar occasionally carries away the 
whole of this volume of mountain waters. At the end of the 
next thousand miles of its course the Ganges is a broad shining 
river, flowing in easy channels through a flat landscape, broken 
only once by the isolated crests and slopes of the Rajmahal 
hills. At this point its flood discharge amounts to a million 
and a half of cubic feet per second. After passing Allahabad 
(at its confluence with the Jumna) the fall of the Ganges drops 
to six inches per mile, and through the last 200 miles of its 
divided course through the plains and swaifips of the delta 
it is even less. Jamnotrl, the source of the Jumna, is not far 
removed from the peaks which give birth to the Bhagirathi. 
The Jumna issues from the foot of the most notable of all the 
array of magnificent snow-clad peaks which group themselves 
at this point of the snowy range, at an elevation of 10,850 feet 
above sea level. The river runs an independent course through 
mountains and plains of 860 miles ere joining the Ganges at 
Allahabad, where, on a narrow tongue of land parting the two 
rivers immediately above their confluence, is the true Prayag, 
the most sacred bourne of Hindu pilgrimage. The clear blue 
waters of the Jumna can be distinguished from the yellow silt- 
charged Gangetic stream far below their confluence. The 
Jumna, like the Ganges, spreads fertility abroad through the 
agency of her canals both eastward and westward, reducing her 
own volume to comparative insignificance during the hot 
weather. A useful contribution to the Jumna is derived from 
the south, by the channels of the river Chambal, which drains 
the gradually rising slopes of the Central Indian plains. The 
Nepal affluents of the Ganges the Gogra and the Gandak 
also form most important additions to the Gangetic system. 
The Gogra, like the Sutlej, breaks through the rampart wall 
of the Himalayas. 

The plains of the United Provinces and of Bihar rise 
in gentle undulations away from the river banks, dotted with 
mud villages and adorned with noble trees. The villages 
cluster thickly, and the brown masses of mud buildings, flat- 
roofed, cool, and scrupulously clean, are chequered by the 
purple shadows of the trees under which the village folk gather 
in the cool of the evening to gossip and discuss the food 
prices of the nearest bazar. Their talk, as they ^it on the 
chabutra round the vermilion-daubed figure of the bene- 
volent god Ganesha, is ever of ' pice ' ; and their prayer is ever 
for rain. Stretching from village to vilTagej and linking together 
the country communities, runs the great white /M^&zr-made 
road of the Sarkar, with long avenues of trees giving welcome 
shade to the creaking bullock-carts and to the white dust- 
powdered figures of the passing wayfarefs. Beyond the road 
and the villages, reaching to the level horizon, are the fielda of 
the peasants, ripe with harvests of millet, sugar, wheat, or Indian 
corn in the autumn, or stretching away empty in brown folds 
under the yellow heat haze of early summer. This is what 
may be seen over thousands upon thousands of square miles 
through a great space of Northern India. 

When the Ganges reaches its delta in Lower Bengal 
(330 miles from its journey's end) the fall of the river is 
so slight that the current, seldom sufficient to enable it 
to carry its burden, deposits its silt. Checked by the rising 
level of the silt-formed plains the river splits into many 
channels, which again throw out their own distributions right 
and left. The country so traversed and intersected with 
waterways is the true delta, which commences where the 
head-waters of the Hooghly break off from the main stream. 
Between the Hooghly and the main river these inosculating 
streams struggle slowly seawards to end in a wilderness of 
forest and swamp, throwing up new levels, pushing out fresh 
headlands, and constantly changing the topography of the land 
surface, even as the lower Ganges itself changes its channel 
and adopts new water-ways within the limits of its own riverain. 
The deltas of three great river systems unite in Lower 
Bengal : those of the Brahmaputra, the Meghna, and the 
Ganges. Where the Brahmaputra rounds the Garo hills, there 
commences the delta of that river ; where the Meghna combines 
the southern rainfall of the Khasi hills with the western drainage 
of the watershed between Bengal and Burma, there commences 
(in Sylhet) a third delta. The delta of the combined rivers, 
covering 50,000 square miles, appears to have experienced suc- 
cessive eras of vegetation and then of submergence. Four 
hundred feet of delta deposit now cover this island built up 
by the three rivers of Bengal, and yet its surface 'is often but 
a few inches above the sea. Here the ordinary landscape is 
a flat stretch of rice-fields, fringed around with an evergreen 
border of bamboo, coco-nut, areca, and other coroneted 
palms. This densely peopled tract seems at first sight bare 
of village^, for each hamlet is hidden amid its own 
grove of plantains and wealth-giving trees. The bamboo 
and the coco-nut play a r conspicuous part in the industrial 
life of the people. Rice is the staple crop and the universal 
diet. Nearly 300 separate kinds of rice are said to be 
distinguished within the single District of Rangpur. The 
vegetable products of Lower Bengal, including drugs, resins, 
gums, fibres, tobacco, sugar, &c., would require a separate 
and a lengthy catalogue. Even the jungle is full of vegetable 
wealth. 'Flowering creepers of gigantic size and gorgeous 
colours festoon the trees, while each tank bears its own 
beautiful crop of lotus and water-lily. Nearly every vegetable 
product which feeds and clothes a people, or enables it to 
trade with foreign countries, abounds/ 

Great changes have taken place throughout the valley of the 
Ganges, even within the historic period. The river has pursued 
its uninterrupted course of land-building, shifting its channels 
from time to time; withdrawing its waters from the walls of 
great cities which once adorned its banks, to give life and 
energy in new directions. Upon its banks in the present day 
are such centres of wealth and commerce as Calcutta, Patna, 
Benares, Allahabad, and Cawnpore, with Agra and Delhi on its 
affluent the Jumna. There is not a river in the world which 
has influenced humanity or contributed to the growth of mate- 
rial civilization, or of social ethics, to such an extent as the 
Ganges. The wealth of India has been concentrated on its 
valley, and beneath the shade of trees whose roots have been 
nourished by its waters the profoundest doctrines of moral 
philosophy have been conceived, to be promulgated afar for 
the guidance of the world. 

Separated though it is from the plains of Lower Bengal 
by a broad band of hill country, the basin of the Mahanadf 
(which includes the eastern half of the Central Provinces and 
a part of Madras) differs from them very little in most of its 
essential physical characteristics. A warm steamy atmosphere 
favours the same palm and rice cultivation, and all the 
conditions of a productive but enervated human existence 
are present. The Mahanadi delta forms the chief feature of 
the fertile flats of Orissa ; and the widespread stretches of 
rice-fields, patiently parcelled into irrigated plots, and parted 
by narrow lines of earth divisions along which are set the 
stately rows of palmyra palms, are but a repetition of the 
features which combine to render monotonous so much of 
the scenery of Lower Bengal. Not far from the mouth of the 
Mahanadi, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, *is one of 
the most sacred shrines of Hindu India. Jiere is erected the 
temple of Jagannath, that unconscious representative of a coali- 
tion of Brahman and Buddhist doctrine*who is to the devout 
Hindu the very type of the Vaishnav faith. On the yellow 
shores, where beats the eternal unresting surf, millions of 
pilgrims collect once a year to rendej homage to the god 
whom they ignorantly worship with a ritual that once was 
purely Buddhist.

==Assam== 
The valley of Assam extending north-eastwards from Lower Assam. 
Bengal, parting the Himalayas of Bhutan from a mass of com- 
paratively low formation which now forms the outliers of the 
Upper Burma mountain system, under the names of the 
GSro, Khasi, Jaintia, and Naga hills, after the aborigines 
who inhabit them is in point of physical resemblance closely 
connected with Bengal. But the unending vista of flat 
cultivation is here narrowed to the width that exists between 
the broad channel of the river and the foothills on either 
side. River and mountain are never parted ; they combine 
to produce an unending panorama of scenic beauty which 
is far more akin to Burma on the east than it is to Bengal 
on the west. Terraced gardens for the growth of tea climb 
the hill-sides or fill in the undulations of the river banks ; 
and the atmosphere is drier, clearer, less enervating and 
more wholesome, by reason of the extensive clearings which 
agriculture develops. Nevertheless, there are enormous wastes, 
especially to the north of the Brahmaputra underlying the 
Himalayas, where forest alternates with stretches of grass or 
reeds, thick and dense, the home of the rhinoceros, buffalo, 
and tiger. Here and there roads run northward from 
the river-side stations, where the steamers call, to the hill 
country beyond, such as that which passes through the State 
of Cooch Behar to Buxa, or from the river to Dewangiri ; 
but for the most part the Du3rs, or plains at the foot of the 
Bhutan Himalayas, are vast impenetrable jungles such as are 
hardly to be found elsewhere in India* 
===the Brahmaputra ===
The Brahmaputra (under its Tibetan name of Tsan-po) The 
spends about half of its total length in a hollow trough on Brahma * 
the north of the Himalayas, between its birthplace near the 
eastern base of Kailas to its bend southwards towards Assam. 
It enters British territory under the name of the Dihang near 
Sadiya. After absorbing the waters of its two confluents, 
the Dibang and the Luhit, the united stream takes the 
name of Brahmaputra (son of Brahma, the Creator), and thence- 
forward rolls for 450 miles down the valley of Assam in a vast 
sheet of water, broken by numerous islands, and exhibiting the 
operations of land-making and encroachment on a gigantic 
scale. 'The mass ot silt brought down from the Himalayas is 
sufficient to form mud-banks, and even islands, wherever it is 
arrested by any impediment in the current of the river, which 
thus constantly shifts its channel amidst an intricate network 
of water-ways. Broad divergent streams split off from the 
parent river, and rejoin it after a long separate existence of 
uncontrollable meandering.' The long-continued deposit of 
mud or silt has gradually lifted the level of the Brahmaputra 
channel above that of the surrounding flats; consequently 
a low strip of marsh and swamp immediately flanks the 
river bank on either side, which is submerged in times of 
flood. Beyond these swamps the ground rises gently to the 
foothills on either side of the valley. 'After leaving the Assam 
valley the Brahmaputra sweeps in a magnificent curve round 
the western spurs of the Garo hills. Under the name of Jamuna, 
it continues for 180 miles, nearly due south, to join the Ganges 
at Goalundo, where the two great deltas unite. Between their 
junction and the sea the united rivers receive fresh 'contribu- 
tions from the eastern watershed between Bengal and Burma, 
through the channels of the Meghna, which is itself a broad 
and imposing river. Unlike the Ganges and the Indus, 
the Brahmaputra is not utilized for irrigation ; but its silt- 
charged overflow annually replenishes the adjoining land, which 
yields unfailing harvests of rice, oil seeds, jute, &c., in the flat 
plains of Eastern Bengal year after year without deterioration. 
The main river is navigable for 800 miles, from the sea to 
Dibrugarh ; and nothing can be more picturesque than the 
crowd of quaintly rigged country craft, fashioned on lines 
that have survived from mediaeval ages, which crowd its 
broad flat surface V Tea, timber, rubber, and cotton are carried 
down the current from Assam ; jute, tobacco, oil seeds, rice, 
and other grains from Eastern Bengal. The total value of the 
river-borne trade of the Brahmaputra is probably not less than 
four millions sterling. 

Such are, in general terms, the prevailing characteristics of 
the eastern extension of the great Indo-Gangetic depression 
which divides the Himalayas from the peninsular highlands. 
When we turn to the western arm, which forms the basin of 
the Indus and its affluents, we find physical characteristics 
that differ in many essential particulars from those we have 
described. 

The From the very commencement of the plair^ spreading south- 

Indus wards, the Punjab presents an aspect qf flat treeless landscape, 
^ ln * a broad grey sea expanding to a level tforizon. There was 
a time when forests grew on the Indus-r-forests with timber 
sufficient to enable Alexander the Great to construct the first 
Indus flotilla ; and about the valley of feshawar there were 

1 The Indian Empire, by Sir W. W. Hunter. 
wide spaces of water-logged and swampy plain, amid the thick 
reed growths of which the rhinoceros and elephant had their 
home. Nor was this so very long ago ; the skull of a rhinoceros 
has been found quite lately on the present ground surface. 
The deadly miasma of the swampy Peshawar valley was as 
destructive 300 years B.C. as in the year of grace 1850. 
Happily within the last half-century science has shown the 
way to improved sanitation, and the climatic reputation of the 
Peshawar valley has greatly improved. But the forests of the 
Punjab have long ago disappeared, and it is probable that with 
their disappearance the meteorological conditions of the Indus 
valley have greatly changed. 

Nowadays the recorded rainfall is scanty (4 to 8 inches per 
annum in Sind, about the lower Indus), and the heat of 
the hot-weather months (April-July) is occasionally terrific. 
Monsoon-laden currents sweep up over Sind month after 
month, but no vapour is condensed in the hot dry air. No 
coast range about Karachi faces the sea to send those currents 
circling aloft into the cooler strata of higher altitudes, where 
rain is made and the heavy atmosphere is deprived of its 
moisture. No part of the Indus valley is subject to a regular 
and systematic rainfall in the monsoon season, although the fall 
gradually increases from Sind upwards to Lahore. Neither can 
the frontier hills west of the Indus be said to lie under the 
influence of the south-west monsoon in spite of their altitude. 
Thus the climate of the Indus valley is hot and dry, and the 
vegetation which feeds on the reeking atmosphere of Bengal is 
entirely wanting. Tamarisk and other scrub fringes the river 
banks, and occasionally stretches outwards into something ap- 
proaching forest dimensions. Irrigation has greatly developed 
lately ; and there are green spots about the Indus river and 
the newly-spread network of the Punjab canals, which are once 
again slowly but surely altering the character of the landscape, 
if not of the climate. 
===The Indus plain===
The Indus is about 1,800 miles in total length, and is more The Indus 
of a mou-itain-bred river than the Ganges. Even after it has river * 
left the Himalaya^ and wound its course across the eastern 
Peshawar plain to Attoc'c (where it is spanned by the railway 
bridge of the North- Western Railway system) it has not lost 
its characteristics of a gorge-enclosed river. It swirls down 
through deep rifts and clefts below Attock, parting the rugged 
spurs of the Punjab Salt Ranges ere it emerges into an open 
network of channels near the salt-built town of Kalabagh, at 
least 200 miles from its Himalayan gates, and long after it 
has received its frontier affluents, the Kabul and Kohat 
rivers. The Indus is never really out of sight of the frontier 
mountains, although the thick haze which so frequently 
envelops the atmosphere of the Derajat (the trans-Indus 
plains of the north) draws a dusty veil Across the land- 
scape; and its southward course from KalabSgh is marked 
more frequently by desert sand-drifted spaces than by 
the green verdure of cultivation. The frontier stations 
below Kohat form wet oases in a dry desert, and their 
humidity (born of excessive irrigation and consequent 
water-logging) frequently renders them unhealthy even in 
the midst of the desert air. The Indus builds up its 
bed, like the Brahmaputra, by the deposit of silt ; and 
the gradually increasing elevation of its great silt-formed 
aqueduct is always a serious menace to the surrounding 
country, inasmuch as it leads to ^very extensive and very 
dangerous floods. The fall of the river from the Himalayas 
to the coast decreases from 50 inches to 5 inches per mile, 
and the lower reaches are subject (and have ever been so) 
to constant change of channel and a shifting of sandy bed. 
The two outer rivers of the Punjab (the Indus and the 
Sutlej), rising near each other beyond the Himalayan wall, 
enclose the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi (the river of 
Lahore), and the Beas. Six centuries B.C. there was yet a 
seventh river of the Punjab the Saraswatl, to the east of 
the Sutlej, of which tradition relates that, having ceased to 
join the Indus, it made for itself an underground connexion 
with the Ganges and Jumna near Allahabad. Over a vast 
space of the now desert country east of the Indus traces of 
ancient river beds testify to the gradual desiccation of a once 
fertile region ; and throughout the deltaic flats of the Indus 
may still be seen old channels which once conducted its 
waters to the Rann of Cutch, giving life and prosperity to 
the past cities of the delta which have left no living records 
of the countless generations that once inhabited them. 
The history of the slow growth of the deltas of the Ganges 
and the Indus forms one of the most interesting chapters in 
geological investigation. It is at leasfcclear that the Indus was 
not always shut off from the Peninsula of India by such wide 
spaces of desert as now form a formidable obstacle to pro- 
gression from its banks eastward. Past generations of 
prehistoric immigrants, who crossed tfce frontier mountain 
barriers in successive waves to search for the golden plains, 
did not meet such obstruction to their slow movements 
towards the east and south as would be encountered in these 
later days. 
===The Sutlej===
Of the living rivers of the Punjab, the Sutlej contributes The 
most to the Indus. The Sutlej rises on the southern slopes Sutlc J 
of the KailSs mpuntain, the Elysium, or Siva's paradise, of 
Sanskrit literature. It once issued from the sacred lake 
of Manasarowar, still the resort of nomadic Tibetan shep- 
herds, who find among the surrounding stony flats pasturage 
for numerous flocks. Emerging from the Kailas foothills 
at a height of 15,200 feet above sea-level, the Sutlej first 
traverses a plain with a south-westerly course, cutting 
through a vast accumulation of alluvial deposits with a gully 
4,000 feet deep. It then breaks through the Himalayas, 
between mountain ridges rising to 20,000 feet, and winds 
among the hills in a succession of rapids till it drops 
to 3,000 feet at Rampur, about 60 miles from Simla. 
Throughout its upper course the river is confined to the 
depths of a mountain trough, steep-sided and flanked 
by bare rocky precipices ; hurling its turbid waters over 
its broken boulder bed with such terrific force as occa- 
sionally to grind into matchwood the huge balks of timber 
which it carries to the plains. Into these gloomy depths no 
human being can penetrate. By the time it reaches Bilaspur 
it has dropped to 1,000 feet above sea-level. After entering 
British territory the Sutlej receives the waters of the Western 
Punjab, and joins the Indus near Mithankot, after a course 
of 900 miles.

===The Jhelum=== 
The Jhelum is the river of Kashmir. Rising on the western The 
slopes of the mountains which enclose the valley of Kashmir 
on the east, the Jhelum follows the example of the Indus on 
the west, and of the Chenab on the east, and winds with 
irregular and fantastic loops to the north-west before taking 
that final bend south which points the way to the Punjab 
plains. This course is determined in the case of all three 
rivers by the strike in the axis of the main Himalayan ranges, 
which is*from north-west to south-east. It has already been 
noticed that the -jchange of direction in the course of the 
Jhelum (when that river , breaks through the mountain barriers 
near BaramQla and rushes in a series of rapids and cataracts 
southward to the plains) has resulted in a silting-up of the 
alluvial plain above the constricted passage through the hills, 
and is the origin of t^e Happy Valley of Kashmir. Similarly 
with the Indus and the Chenab. The upper reaches of these 
rivers, where they drain comparatively narrow valleys between 
stupendous mountains, present none of the wild magnificence 
of the seething cataracts of the lower reaches. The rivers 
flow placidly along, twisting and bending in folds, or sliding 
gently over gravel bottoms, till they pass the actual mountain 
gateways. In the Kashmir valley the figures formed by the 
looping of the Jhelum have led to the traditional pattern that 
is typed in the shawls and carpets of the Kashmir weavers. 
(Such at least is the belief of the Kashmiri, although the cone 
is to be found in more ancient art.) Its poplar-shadowed 
breadths, moving gently and silently towards the Wular Lake, 
lapping the piles of the wooden bridges and the temple 
steps of Snnagar, breathe the spirit of that poetic enchantment 
which ever broods over the country of Lalla Rookh. Below 
Baramula, to the point where it is joined by the Kishenganga 
even beyond it the scene is very different. A turgid flood 
sweeps downward over a rugged bed of boulders, shooting 
athwart them its green wavelets with smooth undulations and 
white frothy lips, or swirling into wild eddies and backwaters 
under the broken banks which enclose it. 
===The Chenab ===
The Much the same characteristics pervade the Chaiab, so long 
Chenab. as the Chenab is a river of the mountains, following a course 
transverse to the general bend or strike of the mountain ridges. 
Both rivers, on emerging into the plains, assume a placid 
course, chequered only by sand and alluvial islets of their 
own construction, and ever shifting their channels from year 
to year. 

===The Ravi===
Between the Chenab and the Sutlej is the Ravi, the source 
of which is sub-Himalayan, derived from the southern slopes 
of a range which overlooks the upper valley of the Chenab. 
The Ravi's claim to distinction is that on its banks stands 
the ancient city of Lahore, most famous of all the cities of 
the Punjab, and the objective of many a military expedition 
from Kabul. 

===The Beas===
The Beas river, which usually ranks as an affluent of the 
Sutlej, follows the rule of the rivers of the Punjab in taking 
a north-westerly course through the sub-Himalayrfh valleys 
from its source (not far removed from th<fse of the Chenab 
and the Ravi on the western slopes of tl^ Sutlej divide, over- 
looking Kotgarh, beyond Simla) to the bend through the 
outermost Himalayan foothills, which carries it south-west to 
its confluence with the Sutlej. There is remarkable uniformity 
in this characteristic of the Punjab livers, which can be 
traced farther east in the mountain affluents of the Jumna 
and the Ganges, recalling that geological era when the 
Indus carried with it the entire drainage of the Central 
Himalayan system. 
===The Punjab plain===
These living rivers of the Punjab, when once they reach The 
the plains, pass through flat regions of interminable waste, Punj 
where tamarisk s^rub struggles for a foothold in the sandy 
soil, redeemed only by the verdure of the fringe of riverain, 
and the green patches due to recent irrigation. For the most 
part it is a region of ugly monotony. The level grey plains 
sink to no horizon. The yellow haze which permeates the 
atmosphere obscures distance, and contributes a prevailing 
tone of dreary drab to the landscape. The roads which 
traverse it are straight and narrow, paved with straw to keep 
down dust and sand, and the heat of the sun-glare (modified 
by haze) alternates with the bitter cold of the nights in 
winter. Through the midst of this flat land, the rivers roll 
down their mud-coloured flood in the snow-melting time 
of the Himalayas ; or they wind in snaky twists about the 
floor of their wide beds, between banks which are ever 
changing, contributing new shoals and islands here and there, 
and shifting their channels yet farther and farther afield in 
uncontrollable vagary. Science has yet to devise a method 
of restraining the rivers of the Punjab. 

The course of the Indus, from NE. to SW., is in striking The 
parallelism to that of the oldest mountain range of India, Indian 
the Aravallis, which divides Rajputana into two unequal 
parts. On the north-west lies the Thar, the great desert of 
India, which from time immemorial has proved to be a more 
effective barrier to the advance of armies than the Indus itself. 
Overlying this ancient bed of a great primaeval sea are ranged 
sand-dunes from 50 to 100 feet high, in systemated curves, 
moving in slow procession in obedience to the westerly winds. 
For 300 miles this desert extends between the Aravallis and 
the Indus, arid, hot, and desolate, yet said to be bracing and 
wholesome beyond any other part of India. There is little 
vegetation^ and what there is chiefly concentrates in the neigh- 
bourhood of the cities of the desert, Jaisalmer and Bikaner. 
Only a single river bed ^of any importance is to be found 
in Western Rajputana, that of the Luni, which carries the 
drainage of the northern slopes of the Aravallis into the 
nearest corner of the Rann of Cutch. On the northern edge 
of the desert, the ark^ character of the plains merges into 
the prevailing feature of scrub-covered wastes which is 
characteristic of so much of the Punjab, On the south- 
west it is continued by the Thar and Parkar sands of Sind. 
This vast open space of desiccated plain on the north- 
west of the Indian Peninsula terminates in the broad 
depression of the Rann of Cutch, flanked to the south 
by the hills of Gujarat, which form the neural extension of 
the Aravallis. Thus a wide region of depression is open 
to the vapour-bearing winds of the south-west monsoon, 
which sail through it and over it, unhindered by moun- 
tains, until they reach the Punjab. The Aravallis may 
be said to divide the monsoon-washed area of the Pen- 
insula southward from the dry regions of the Baluch 
frontier. So constant and unceasing is the steady sun- 
glare of the desert that a tradition (supported by a certain 
amount of evidence) relates that in days long anterior to 
the date of our introduction of the heliograph, bazar prices 
of wheat and grain in the Punjab were signalled by means 
of reflecting mirrors across Rajputana to Sind and Bombay 
all the year round. 
===Sourthern rtajputana===
Southern That part of Rajputana which lies south of the Aravallis 
Rajpu- differs essentially from the Rajputana of the north. Here 
we drop once again into the basin of the Ganges, for the 
Chambnl river, with its Banas affluent, drains northward 
to the Jumna. It is in this part of RajputSna that the 
great Rajput cities of the past are linked together 
Jaipur, Ajmer, Udaipur, and Jodhpur; and it is here that 
the ancient Rajput dynasties rose to a position of pre- 
eminence among the dynasties of the continent. The sand- 
drifted landscapes of the northern reigions of Rajputana 
are not wholly wanting to the south of the Arlvallis. Around 
Jaipur (itself set amid bright cultivation, and a centre 
of Indian art culture) broad sandy wastes reach to the foot 
of the rugged barren hills; they encompass the famous 
salt lake of Sambhar, white-edged with salt efflorescence 
and rose-tinted with pink crystals, where long sweeping 
lines of pink and white flamingoes make moving patterns 
on the sky as they circle in ordered companies. The 
atmosphere of Southern Rajputana is still the sweet pure 
air of a dry desert; and the climate, with somewhat sharp 
extremes of temperature, is that which might well breed 
a race of men such as the heroes of their epics and the 
Rajputs of Indian history. Wind-blown sand always lies 
conspicuous on the northern slope% of the long straight 
lines of rocky ridge which, south of the Aravallis for many 
a league, indicate the ancient existence of a yet wider 



 

mountain system. Yet farther south and east, the desert 
aspects of Rajputana are gradually lost, merged in the 
comparatively fertile forest-clad highlands of peninsular India. 
But it is the Aravallis that mark the line of division. Beyond 
them to the nortji-west lie the Indus and the tertiary flats 
which the Indus divides. South of them are ancient red- 
sandstone strata of the continent, and a region of broad open 
valleys and gentle slopes, with rivers flowing in permanent 
channels, magnificent forests, a comparatively even rainfall, 
and temperate climate. 

From the valley of the Ganges towards the south, India r ine 
slopes gently upwards to a central transverse water-parting, 
which crosses the continent from west to east about the parting. 
parallel of 23 N. lat., curving slightly where it follows the 
crest of the Vindhya hills, overlooking the deep narrow trough 
of the Narbada river on the west, and breaking into irregularity 
where it parts the Ganges affluents from those of the Mahanadi 
on the east. The Vindhyas are the rebord or escarpment 
of the long gently shelving slopes of Central Indian territory. 
There is no steep fall, no well-marked spurs or steep-sided 
valleys, to the north of them. Southward, however, they slope 
abruptly from the crest to the Narbada bed, shaping like a 
mountain wall buttressed by short forest-clad spurs, and pre- 
senting all the characteristics of a mountain range as seen 
from the river. 
===The vindhyci===
The general lie of the Vindhyan strata is so nearly horizontal Central 
that throughout Central India there is one prevailing type of India * 
scenery. The sharp narrow-backed ridges of the Rajputana 
border, following the strike of the Aravallis, give place to 
broader flatter elevations, where the red-sandstone strata 
(formed, it may be, from the debris of the Aravalli range) 
spread into nearly horizontal layers, with a gentle tilt south- 
wards towards the Vindhyan water-parting. Here are straight 
lines of flat-topped hills and isolated synclinal folds, with deep- 
set ravines (locally known as kho\ and the rivers occasion- 
ally run defcp, with a network of intricate ravines interlacing 
their borders. Suoh well-marked hills as that which is sur- 
mounted by the rock fortress of Gwalior are rare, but they 
occur with less accentuated features farther south, and with a 
general tendency to scatter into isolated groups, leaving wide 
spaces of flat plain between. Forest areas are restricted in 
this part of the Peninsula, and their bounds are usually well 
defined. There is none of the interminable jungle of the 
Central Provinces farther east aud south; the climate is for 
the most part delightful in winter and tolerable in summer. 
The elevation of the plains rises to about 2,000 feet above 
sea-level, and the scenery amid the broken highlands is often 
magnificent. 

===Central provinces===
The Eastward of the Central Indian States, e but north of the 

centra ' water-parting and still within the basin of the Ganges, 
the characteristics of the country change continually. The 
water-parting between the Narbada and the Ganges lies close 
to the Narbada river, restricting the valley to a narrow trough 
from its source at Amarkantak. From the Amarkantak massif 
the Son river takes its rise and runs north-east to the Ganges, 
and here too the upper affluents of the MahSnadf emerge out- 
ward and strike south-east for the Bay of Bengal. Between 
the two lies a broad tract of country, closely intersected with 
forest-covered hills on the west, but sinking into moist alluvial 
flats on the east (where it approaches the Gangetic delta), which 
is drained by several minor rivers, carrying their waters to the 
Bay of Bengal between the Hooghly channel of the Ganges 
and the Mahanadl. 

The hilly district which culminates on the eastern edge of the 
Jubbulpore province (where the shrine at Amarkantak overlooks 
the sources of three great rivers) includes many remarkable 
topographical features. With a general tendency in the prin- 
cipal ranges to maintain a strike transverse to the meridian, 
they nevertheless present a most irregular structural conform- 
ation. Their broken outlines, piled upwards in apparent 
confusion here stretching out into flattish forest-covered up- 
lands, there breaking into rugged spurs dipping steeply down 
to the river edge are highly picturesque ; and the intervening 
folds of the rolling ruddy plains, dotted with tree clumps and 
spaced into park-like glades, are both typical and distinctive of 
Central Provinces scenery. 
===The Narbada===
The Narbada and the Tapti (to the south of the Narbada) 
together form a conspicuous exception to the general rule which 
governs the course of the rivers of the Peninsula, inasmuch as 
they flow westward, instead of eastward, in comparatively deep 
and narrow valleys to the Indian Ocean, dividing the sloping 
plains of the Vindhyan system from the Deccan traps and 
the plateaux of the central area. The two valleys are 
themselves separated by the SatpurS hills, which range 
themselves in a well-defined thickly-forest-clad mountain fold 
from the central mass (culminating tbout Amarkantak) to 
the coast line above the Western Ghats. A break in the 
continuity of this picturesque chain near Khandwi admits 
of the passage of the railway connecting Jubbulpore with 
Bombay. South of the Tapti river, throughout the Deccan 
and Madras, all the rivers of the Peninsula flow across 
the continent from west to east, rising in the slopes of the 
Western Ghats, t 

Next to the Ganges, the Narbada ranks as the most sacred The Narbada. 
river in India. Along its banks are erected shrines and 
temples innumerable, and tradition points to an age when 
it should even supersede the Ganges itself in the power of 
its sanctifying agency. The upper part of its course through 
the Central Provinces is confined within an exceptionally 
narrow and steeply enclosed valley, deep-set between the 
scarps of the Vindhyas on the north and the spurs of the Sat- 
puras on the south. Here the Narbada is a magnificent 
stream of clear rushing water, breaking into cascades near its 
source, and leaping into falls where marble rocks enclose it 
below Jubbulpore ; but after leaving the Central Provinces 
it widens to a mile or so in breadth, and courses placidly 
through the fertile flats of the Broach District of Bombay. 
Below the city of Broach it forms an estuary thirteen miles 
broad, the approach to the port being entirely dependent on 
tide. The Narbada is navigable for country boats for about 
sixty miles of its lower course in flood time only ; the upper 
reaches of .the river are unnavigable and at the same time 
practically useless for irrigation. 
==Southern india==
South of the Tapti river commences the Deccan, that Southern 
striking physical feature which shapes the whole continent Indui * 
of India- the great three-cornered upheaval which, abut- 
ting on the line of the Western Ghats, slopes with 
comparatively reguhr and easy grades to the step formed 
by the Eastern Ghats overlooking the Bay of Bengal. 
Fringing this central sloping plateau on either side is a 
narrow strip of coast land, which comprises the lowlands of 
Bombay on the west and of Madras on the east. These 
lowlands form the India known to mediaeval tradition. It 
was on tlTfem that the foreigner, pushing forward his com- 
mercial interests, first set his foot ; and the India known to 
the West for many centuries was but the narrow margin of 
fertile territory which lay below the feet of the mountains known 
as the Eastern and Western Gh&ts. 

===The western cost===
There is naturally a considerable difference of physical The 
aspect to be noticed between the low flat lands bordering western 
the Indian Ocean to the north of the Narbada and those 
of the long strip of Bombay coast to the south. When the 
great prehistoric sea of Northern Rajputana disappeared, 
there disappeared with it those climatic influences which 
once streaked Rajputftna with glaciers; but in later years 
the evidence of land formation has reasserted itself and is 
even yet in process of evolution. Where the sands of Rajpu- 
tana, shelving gently westward, merge into the flats of the 
Arabian Sea, we find the indefinite space of land and water 
called the Rann of Cutch, generally defined in our maps as 
a gulf or sea, with the island of Cutch standing in its midst 
and the peninsula of KathiawSr separating it from the shallow 
Gulf of Cambay. But the Rann is now chiefly dry land a salt, 
barren, blinding waste of sand, where only the wild ass can 
thrive ; and there is abundant evidence on all sides that it has 
been but lately developed and may again return to the sea. 
Kathiawar, with rising hills amid wide fertility, is an ancient 
land formation, possibly as old as the ArSvallis themselves ; 
but north of Kathiawar, and south of it in the Bay of Cambay, 
as well as northward beyond Karachi and on the MakrSn coast, 
the process of silting (due partly to the influence of the south- 
west monsoon currents, and partly to the terrestrial action of 
rivers) is still proceeding apace, so that the general progression 
of land formation can be traced from year to year. The 
ceaseless action of the surf, slowly overcoming the resistance 
offered by a firm shore line (and aided possibly by a slow 
alteration in the level of the land surface), has here and there 
led to sea encroachment. The growth of the land seawards is 
neither universal nor unchecked. The western promontory of 
Kathiawar has yielded somewhat to the ocean, whose waves 
now beat on the steps of the temple at Dwrka ; and there 
are traditions of islands farther south fringing the coast in the 
days when the slow fleet of Nearchus was piloted from the 
Indus mouth to Persia, which have altogether disappeared. 
But much of the land material thus effaced has been given back 
in the form of silt washed up in the fast-shallowing inlets 
and bays, and has contributed to the larger distribution of 
those deltaic areas which now extend for msfny square 
miles over spaces which have been sea within historic times. 
South of the TSpti river along the length of the Bombay 
coast no very recent land growth is visible. The evidence 
of present configuration, confirmed by tradition, points to an 
ancient submergence of a vast extension of the continent on 
the west c 

===the western ghats=== 
The Western Ghats probably represents  
primaeval water-divide of the bygone Peninsula as it represents 
that of to-day ; but the upheaval to present altitudes must be 
comparatively recent, inasmuch as the steep-sided valleys of 
the rivers draining westward, and their tendency to deepen and 
reach back eastward at their sources, seem to testify to a yet 
unadjusted gradient. With a general elevation of 3,000 feet, 
the rugged outlines of the Western Ghats are shaped into 
steep-sided cliffs and square-crested flat-topped peaks, which 
present a remarkable appearance. The weathering action of 
ages has shaped the trap formation into natural citadels and 
fortresses which dominate the crest of the hills, and were found 
most useful as military positions in the wild days of Maratha 
supremacy. South of Bombay the seaward face of the hills 
is clothed with dense forest, and passes inland from the 
coast are few. But in the north the interior plateau is 
approached by several roads, famous in history, from the 
level coast strip on the western side. Of these the Borghat 
is the best known, for where the railway now curls and 
twists around the spurs of a tremendous ravine to a height of 
2,027 feet above the sea was once the military road which has 
ever been regarded as the key to the Deccan. It opened the 
wajfc from the rising port of Bombay to the plains of India. 
The Thalghat (1,912 feet) to the north-east of Bombay is 
another historic pass which likewise now carries a railway ; and 
a third (almost equally celebrated) connects Belgaum with 
the little port of Vengurla. The precipitous square-cut peaks, 
which give such a fantastic appearance to the scenery of 
the Western Ghats, are to be found wherever horizontal 
strata of varying degrees of resistance are subject to sub- 
aerial denudation. They repeat themselves in the Droogs 
of Deccan scenery. 
===The konkan and Malabar=== 
The seaward face of the Western (ihats is steep, a veri- The Kon- 
table * landing stair' (ghat) from the sea, and the intersecting 
valleys are filled with luxuriant vegetation, nourished by * 
the sea-borne mists and vapours which condense upon the 
crest of Ihe hills and stream down the steep-sided gullies 
in endless procession during the monsoon season. The 
narrow space of lowland bordering the sea below (from 
twenty to fifty miles wide) is much broken by spurs through- 
out the northern province of the Konkan, and in North 
Kanara the hills approach the sea very closely ; but farther 
to the south they recede, leaving the fertile plains of South 
Kanara and Malabar comparatively open. In the District 
of Malabar the Western Ghfits merge into the irregular 
uplands of the Nilgiris, rising in altitude to 7,000 and 
8,000 feet ere they drop suddenly to a remarkable gap 
(the Palghat Gap), through which the railway is now carried 
eastward from the coast port of Beypore. 

The low-lying plains bordering the sea throughout the whole 
length of Western India, from the KathiSwar promontory to 
Cape Comorin, represented in mediaeval ages most of the 
wealth and strength of India, and are still noted for their great 
fertility. Ancient ports and factories (Arab, Portuguese, and 
Dutch) are to be found scattered along the coast line, and 
amid the palm groves of Malabar are many relics of the 
days when the commerce of the East centred on this coast. 
The long, firm, curved outline of the western sea-board south 
of Bombay is lost in Malabar. Here inlets and backwaters 
break across the dividing line of sea and shore, rendering 
the coast scenery impressively beautiful. Cascades plunge 
down the steep-sided cliffs into depths spanned by rainbows; 
and the deep stillness of primaeval forest encloses the clear 
reaches of the sea. 
===The nilgiris===
The The physical aspects of the Nilgiris and Anaimalais (repeated 

Kilgms. j n t j ie highlands of Ceylon) are remarkable for a certain round- 
ness of outline and softened harmony of colouring which is 
wanting amid the sterner grandeur of the Himalayan moun- 
tains, or in the sharp exaggeration of steep-sided, square- 
crested peak and undulating forest which distinguishes the 
West. With a warm climate and a plentiful rainfall (80 to 100 
inches) the abundance of natural flower growth allied to an 
indigenous sub-tropical vegetation is the glory of the Blue 
Hills (Nilgiris) of the south. It is a characteristic which 
stiff rows of imported Australian trees (eucalyptus, wattle, 
and the like) have hardly yet displaced. The swelling grass 
downs of the plateau are parted by clear streams running in 
shallow channels, or by spaces of marshland and bog, bordering 
patches of indigenous forest, or sholas, which adjust them- 
selves to the rounded contours of the hills. From the 
western peaks of the Nilgiris the lowland sea ok tumbled 
Wynaad hills may be seen stretching towards the blue waters 
of the Indian Ocean. ^ 

The Nilgiri group forms the orogrSphical apex of the 
Deccan highlands, which occupy a central triangular space 
of the Peninsula, bordered by the Bombay and Madras 
lowlands on the west and east respectively. Southward from 
the Nilgiris, but separated from them by the well-defined 
Gap, the line of the Western Ghats is continued 
through the Anaimalai group by definite ranges to the 
southern point of the Peninsula ; while detached masses of hills 
(the Palnis and the Salem hills), branching off to the north-east 
towards Madras, preserve the structural outlines of the continent 
south of the Deccyi. 
===The coromandel coast===
Between these southern hills and the eastern coast an  - 
expanse (100 miles in width) of lowland forms the richest 
section of the Madras Presidency. The heavy SW. mon- 
soon rainfall of the Western Ghats is unknown in the plains 
of Eastern Madras, but compensation is found in the NE. 
monsoon which usually succeeds the currents of the 
former. About 40 to 50 inches of rainfall form the average ; 
and it is sufficient (with the addition of highly developed 
systems of irrigation) to ensure an almost inexhaustible fertility 
to the productive soil of these heat-laden districts. The low- 
lands of Madras are lands of palms, and of rice cultivation ; of 
architectural development; of magnificent temples and decora- 
tive monuments of the Hindu faith ; of busy centres of native 
culture and industry, where alone throughout the length and 
breadth of the continent evidences of a really indigenous art 
may be found. 
===The eastern ghats===
Northward from Madras, curving slightly to follow the coast The 
line, stretches a series of hills forming the eastern flank of ^ s - t e 
the Deccan plateau, which are known as the Eastern Ghats. 
They possess little of the magnificence gained by the regular 
structure but irregular outlines of the Ghats of the west. 
They are scattered, broken, and of much inferior altitude ; but 
there is geological evidence that they are but the denuded 
and depressed relics of a far higher and more distinguished 
mountain series, which may have been contemporary with 
the Aravallis. They are certainly very ancient. They may 
be traced northward at varying distances from the coast 
(averaging about 50 miles from crest to shore line, but 
occasionally throwing off spurs which break the coast into 
headlands) till they join with the transverse water-divide 
which patfs the rivers of the Deccan from the Narbada 
and Mahanadl basins. The physical characteristics of all 
that strip of territory wlych includes the maritime districts 
of Madras vary but Tittle between the Mahanadl basin and 
Cape Comorin. Everywhere there is the same humid and 
enervating atmosphere, but faintly relieved by the freshness 
of the sea; the same % narrow strip of sandy foreshore, lead- 
ing up to a wide vista of green rice crops and palm growth ; 
the same background of forest-clad hills, now receding into. 
the misty distance, now breaking the dead monotony of 
the surf-bound coast with bold bleak headlands. At intervals 
there occur broken edges in this ancient coast-line, where 
large lagoons or lakes range themselves in a formation not 
unlike that of the backwaters of Malaby. Whenever the 
delta of a great river occurs, there reaches out seaward a 
wide expanse of banks and shallows which render a close 
approach to the coast ports impossible to ships of any size. 
When no such silt-formations exist, the open roadstead 
usually affords fair and close anchorage (as at Madras and 
Vizagapatam), but on the whole the east coast of India is 
singularly deficient in natural harbours. From the deck of 
a coasting steamer at anchor off Masulipatam a far-away line 
of nodding palms is frequently all that may be seen to indi- 
cate the existence of land. 

On the west of India the long line of maritime territory 
stretching between the Ghats and the sea is unbroken by the 
passage of any considerable river south of the Tapti. But 
on the eastern coast we have in succession all the rivers of 
Central and Southern India, which, rising almost within 
sight of the western coast, break through the line of 
Eastern Ghats and form wide fertile deltas, which are the 
granaries of the Peninsula. The deltas of the GodSvari, 
the Kistna, and the Cauvery together form the most re- 
markable feature in the economic geography of Madras; 
dnd to the north of them the Mahanadf intervenes with 
another system of deltaic irrigation which adds to the wealth 
of Lower Bengal. 

===The deccan===
The The term Deccan (Dakshln, the 'right hand' or 'south') eccan. application comprises the highlands filling 
the triangular space south of the central transverse watershed, 
and within the crest-line of the Eastern and Western Ghats 
which buttress it on either side. Shelving gradually from 
west to east, it is generally an area of open valleys and broad 
plains, broken by the fantastic outlines of the Western Ghats 
and their outliers; extensively cultivated within the States 
of Hyderabad and Mysore, but covered with primaeval forests 
to the east of the Godavari, where it stretches in gentle grades 
to the crests of the Eastern Ghats. 

The two great river basins of the Godavari and the Kistna 
nearly divide the Deccan highlands between them. The 
Cauvery is a third river of the Deccan t which has its sources 
in the Western Ghats to the north-west of Mysore, close 
to those of the Tungabhadra, the chief southern affluent of the Kistna. The basin of the Penner also (a comparatively 
small river which reaches the Bay of Bengal near Nellore) 
includes a part of the Deccan highlands. The small streams 
and rivulets which, emerging from the embrace of the eastern 
slopes of the Ghafs, unite to form these rivers as they gradually 
pursue an uneventful course through the shelving flats of 
the Deccan, pass through districts which are almost mono- 
tonously similar in their physical characteristics. The magni- 
ficent peaks and precipices and broken outlines of the western 
mountains merge gently into wide rust-coloured plains, streaked 
and dotted with outlying hills of bold configuration, which 
still preserve a physical likeness and relation to each other. 
The intervening spaces are bare in patches, or covered with 
an intermittent growth of somewhat stunted forest, save where 
the black soil (locally known as 'cotton' soil) prevails near 
the rivers, until gradually the river-flow becomes more abun- 
dant, and irrigation adds fertility and agricultural freshness 
to the landscape. There is no soil in India more productive 
than the black cotton soil of its central highlands. In the 
gneissic regions of the Deccan, the plains are frequently starred 
and dotted by granite tors and bosses, sometimes of immense 
size, which introduce a local character to the aspect of the 
country that is entirely typical of India. The rock of 
Trichinopoly ; the great carved bull of the Chamundi hill in 
Mysore; the Madan Mahal in Jubbulpore, where a palace 
surmounts a rounded mass of granite, are all famous and afe 
all typical. 

As the great rivers, gathering force, flow eastward and south- Indian 
ward, the arid wind-swept plains give place to a more general orests * 
growth of jungle, and immediately approaching the Eastern 
Ghats the forest thickens greatly. 
===India forests===
Indian forest, which is perhaps the most generally prevalent 
of all its physical aspects, varies very much in different parts 
of the continent. In the north and north-east of India the 
Tarai forest below the Himalayas largely consists of huge trees 
set in a *hick mass of almost impenetrable vegetation, with 
a rank growth of grasses and reeds interspersed. The 
trees are often of gigarvtic size, and tufted bamboos inter- 
lace beneath their Videspread arms, reducing daylight to 
twilight, and leaving but the narrow paths and tracks of 
wild animals open to living movement in their midst. Where 
elephants and buffaloes have not forced a way, it is frequently 
impossible to traverse these forests at all. 

Some of the denser forests of the west coast almost rival those of the Tarui. They include an infinite variety of small 
shrubs, parasitic plants, and tangled creepers ; but the forests 
of the central highlands on the contrary are mostly full of air 
and light, which percolate freely amid a stunted growth of aca- 
cias, sal (Shorea robustd), teak (Tectona gran^fs\ tamarind, and 
bamboo. The ragged sagun (a form of teak) scatters dead leaves 
among the yellowing grass stalks of winter, and thorny shrubs put 
out new buds and a fresh greenery at the same time. As the hot 
weather wears on, Central Indian jungle becomes filled with 
weird patches of colour. The straight stiff-limbed cotton-tree 
is decorated with scarlet blossoms, without the relief of leaves, 
and the glossy-leaved dhdk (Butea frondosd] hangs out bunches 
of vermilion. The glaring sunshine is but faintly modified 
by any foliage save that of the banyan and the plpal (Ficus 
indica and F. religiosa), beneath which the dried and scanty 
grass fills the air with dust and fluffy seed. Bamboos and 
cane brake are common in damp spots near the foot 
of the hills, on and about which the best timber (teak and 
sat) is invariably found. Forest reserves have done much to 
improve the forest growth ; and already the wild animals of 
the trackless jungles have made these reserves peculiarly their 
home. 
===The Godavari===

The Godavari river rises in the Nasik hills of Bombay and avan. follows a generally south-easterly course through the Hy- 
derabad State to the Presidency of Madras. Its total length 
is about 900 miles, and there is no river in India which can 
boast of more varied scenery. Its upper reaches are compara- 
tively shallow, flowing in a wide channel with a gentle grade ; 
and its chief tributaries, the Wardha, the Penganga, and the 
Wainganga, share similar characteristics. Where it parts 
Hyderabad from British territory it receives the waters of the 
Indravati and the Sabari, and develops into a wide and im- 
portant river with a broad channel and many islets. Countless 
smaller streams join it from the Hyderabad side, and in most 
of them gold-washing is an intermittent, but not a lucrative, 
industry. Of the minor rivers of India none is moro interest- 
ing than the Indravati, which traverses the most untrodden 
regions of the Peninsula. Here, in*the deepest recesses of 
the wild forests which cover the Mardian hills, is the home 
of the Gond races one of the aboriginal Dravidian peoples 
whose origin is indistinct ; a people who still erect rude stone 
monuments and use stone implement, unwitting of the 
procession of the centuries and the advance of civilization 
to their borders. In the scale of civilized peoples they are even lower than the Bhils of the Narbada basin. The 
whole course of the Indravati and the lower reaches of 
the Godavari below the junction of the two rivers are 
splendidly picturesque. The channel of the Godavari con- 
tracts, and the hills close in till the river breaks through 
a magnificent gorge, only 200 yards wide, before spreading 
outwards into the plains some sixty miles from the 
sea. The entire delta of the Godavari has been turned 
into a magnificent field for perennial crops by irrigation. 
An 'anicut,' two and a half miles long and substantially 
built of stone embedded in cement, has been carried across 
the river where it enters the plains, and from the head of 
water thus obtained three main canals carry 3,000 cubic feet 
of water per second (rising to 12,000 in time of flood) to 
fertilize 780,000 acres of productive soil. These works are 
among the most remunerative irrigation systems in India. All 
attempts, however, to render the Godavari navigable to the 
Central Provinces have proved fruitless. 
===The Kistna===
The Kistna, rising near the Mahableshwar sanitarium of The 
Bombay (about forty miles from the western coast), passes Klstna * 
through India southward and eastward, watering districts which 
are in most particulars similar to those of the upper Godavari 
basin. The river, like its two great tributaries the Bhima 
from the north and the Tungabhadra from the south flows 
rapidly over a rocky bottom, and is of little value for 
irrigation till it breaks through the Eastern Ghats and 
spreads over the Madras-ward lowlands. Two main irrigation 
canals are carried from the ' anicut ' which arrests its flow 
at Bezwada, where it leaves the hills, and between them 
they irrigate an area of 226,000 acres, introducing another 
wide space of deltaic cultivation into the maritime districts 
of Madras. 
===The Cauvery===
A third such space is formed by the delta of the Cauvery, The 
which constitutes the greater part of the fertile District ofC auvei T* 
Tanjore ('the garden of South India'). Here there is an 
ancient 'fcnicut,' or dam, of unhewn stone, 1,080 feet in length, 
besides a modern, 'anicut' 2,250 feet in length, across the 
Coleroon branch of the Hver. The Cauvery (which is known 
to the Hindus as the Dakshini Ganga, or Ganges of the south, 
and is traditionally said to be derived from the same source 
as the Ganges) rises in Coorg, and becomes the river of 
Mysore. Its upper cpurse is tortuous, the bed of the river is 
rocky, and the banks are steep and covered with rank vegeta- 
tion. In the Mysore State it is flanked by a strip of rich cultivation, no less than twelve irrigation dams having 
been constructed to intercept its flow. Within the limit of 
this State it encloses the two sacred islands of Seringapatam 
and Sivasamudram. Around the latter are the celebrated 
falls, the river branching into two channel^, each of which 
descends about 300 feet in a series of cascades and rapids. 
The scenery of this part of the river course is unrivalled 
for romantic beauty. 

Three minor riversthe Penner (the river of Nellore), the 
Palar (south of Madras), and the Vaigai (the river of Madura) 
all contribute to the alluvial wealth of the maritime districts 
of Madras. The chief physical characteristic of all Eastern 
India is its deltaic wealth and agricultural abundance. Here 
swarms an indolent rice-eating population, which contributes 
as little to the strength of the Empire as the eastern 
districts of Bengal. A moist, humid atmosphere, easy 
abundance of food, and a generally enervating climate, all 
tell against physical development; although there are yet 
communities in Madras which can boast of a martial 
population with traditions of the Carnatic and MarathS. wars 
still stirring their veins. 

===The extreme south===
The In the extreme south of India the Districts of Tinnevelly extreme anc j Madura, shut off from the western maritime State of 
Travancore by the granite ranges of the Southern Ghats, present 
a distinct feature in Indian physiography. They consist mostly 
of open treeless plains sloping gently eastwards to the sea, with 
long spurs and outliers reaching north-eastwards about the 
sources of the Vaigai, but southwards, where the mountains 
rise to 4,000 feet in height, they throw off no spurs whatever. 
Isolated hills and masses of rock are scattered about the broad 
red plains, with a little cultivation near the river banks. Groves 
of palmyra and coco-nut flourish near the coast and along the 
river banks, but the general appearance of the country is one 
of dry, red desolation. The coast line is broken by shoals, and 
rocks, and reefs, with many evidences of the recent submergence 
which has separated Ceylon from the mainland. It iVa curious 
feature in Indian physiography that so great a difference should 
mark the aspect of this part of India (the early centre of 
Dravidian occupation and development) and Ceylon, which is 
so near it. 

===Travancore===
On the other hand, is one of the most picturesque 
portions of Southern India. The Gh^s, covered with mag- 
nificent primaeval forest, throw out spurs to the western coast. 
The whole country is undulating, and the narrow strip of 
lowland facing the ocean is one unbroken mass of coco-nut 
and areca palms. The coast is patched with lagoons and 
backwaters, the latter forming a line of inland water com- 
munication for nearly the whole length of the State. The 
abundant rainfall is answerable for effects of climate and 
scenery which (unlike Tinnevelly and Madura) find their 
parallel in the southern island. 

Separated from India politically as a Crown colony, Ceylon, Ceylon, 
the 'utmost Indian isle/ cannot be dissociated from the 
Peninsula, with which it is so nearly connected by Adam's 
Bridge and the island of Rameswaram. The rocks and 
shoals which beset the narrow sea between the Indian 
coast and Ceylon are passable by two narrow passages : one, 
known as the Manaar, is only navigable by small boats ; the 
other, the IMmban, admits of vessels drawing 10 feet. Ceylon 
appears to have been for ages slowly rising from the sea, the 
extension of the northern flats about Jaffna being quite recent 
probably formed partly by accumulation of detritus washed 
down by strong southern currents from the Coromandel coast 
and piled on to the coral reefs around Point Pedro. From the 
central mountain zone outwards there extends a broad fringe 
of plain, which varies in width from 30 to 80 miles in the 
southern parts of the island, but occupies very nearly half of 
its area in the north. The mountains group themselves into 
fantastic peaks and prominences about the centre of the island ; 
but, irregular as is their apparent configuration, there is a 
distinct tendency to a north-east to south-west strike about the 
main ridges of them. The highest peak, Pidurutalaga, domi- 
nates the mass from an altitude of 8,300 feet ; but the sharply 
defined Adam's Peak, overlooking the sacred footprints of Siva, 
of Buddha, or of St. Thomas (according to the faith of the 
devout pilgrim to the shrine), is better known. Detached 
hills are rare, the most famous being Mahintale near the 
ancient Buddhist city of Anuradhapura ; and Siguri, which 
is very similar to those detached and steeply scarped isolated 
hills of the Deccan whch have so frequently been con- 
verted into Mar2thft strongholds. Except for the clearings of 
plantation and agriculture the whole island is jungle-covered. 
The northern half of it is a vast expanse of primaeval forest, 
traversed by the great high road of the north, with its branches 
to the ports of the eastern coast Forests have closed in, 

are as yet but partially explored. Ancient images of Buddha 
sit in eternal contemplation of the recurrent processes of decay 
and regeneration in the shadowy depths of the ever-thickening 
jungle. Twenty feet below the present level of the land surface 
are found architectural evidences of a faith lyhich founded them 
less than 2,000 years ago. 

The coast-line of Ceylon is singularly beautiful. Fringed 
with palm trees down to the very water's edge, the long line 
of yellow foreshore is broken at frequent intervals by the 
picturesque villages of a fishing population, which seems to 
swarm in every sheltered bay and backwater. On the east 
and south the coast is low, and the surf beats with long 
monotonous cadence on the sands. On the east some of 
the luxuriance of vegetation is wanting, but the coast breaks 
into bold headlands, cliffs, and precipices, and deep soundings 
are found close to the shore. The harbour of Trincomalee 
(famous in the history of our naval conflicts with the French 
in eastern seas) is celebrated as one of the most beautiful in 
the world, ranking with Sydney or Rio Janeiro. The well- 
known ports of the west coast, those of Colombo and Point 
de Galle, are picturesque, by reason both of natural situation 
and artificial development. The quaint old Dutch towns 
which overlook them, full of life and colour, seem specially 
adapted to match the natural environment of deep green 
vegetation flanking smooth-spreading grass flats, interlaced 
by the ruddy roads or brightened by sparkling lakelets. 
No measured language can express the beauties of Ceylon 
scenery. From Colombo to Kandy, where a lake set in the 
hills reflects the visions of palms and temples, and the many- 
coloured array of native buildings below the long slopes of 
the shadowing mountains ; and from Kandy to Nuwara Elia, 
where the softer and gentler beauty of the Nilgiris is repeated 
in rounded slopes and lakes and patches of indigenous sholas 
amid the mountains, there are endless vistas of transcendent 
beauty. The rivers of Ceylon (of which the chief is the 
Mahaveli Ganga), while yet collecting their mountain 
affluents, rush downwards through glens and ravines, and 
fall in cascades to shaded forest dqpths, circling and winding 
under the curved arms of magnificeift bamboos, breaking 
into cataracts and rapids, and finally sliding in broad level 
reaches across the flats and sands of the maritime lowlands. 
The roads of Ceylon pass through Iqpg avenues of pepper- 
festooned palm trees, backed (but for the narrow spaces of 
cultivation) with black depths of primaeval jungle. They are 

full of life and colour, derived from the flights of myriad 
butterflies which fill the air with gaudy glitter, and the gaily- 
dressed Tamil people who gather in bunches on the banks 
of the great four-sided Buddhist tanks absorbed in eternal 
gossip, The clear^spaces of Ceylon are to be found in the 
plantations of cocoa, coffee or tea, or in the midst of the 
rice-fields. Cocoa cultivation favours a growth of shade trees, 
and a cocoa estate therefore presents a natural charm some- 
times wanting in the stiff lines of tea cultivation, which cover 
the undulating hills up to an altitude of about 6,000 feet as 
with a dark-green vestment. Since the failure of coffee, tea 
plantations have become the prominent feature in Singhalese 
mountain landscape. 

T. H. HOLDICH.