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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

Physical Aspectsz

No one who travels through the length and breadth of the Extreme

continent of India can fail to be struck with the extraordinary "

variety of its physical aspects. 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.

Oldest of all the physical features which intersect the con- India in tinent 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

VOL. i. . B

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

B 2

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 EMPIRE

The Indian border- lands.

Southern Baluchis- tan.

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 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 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 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.

Behind and beyond the band of border mountains lies Afghan- 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 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 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 snowy p^aks 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.

Hima- The main passes across the Himalayas may be divided into

layan 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.

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 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- The Peninsula of India is parted from the northern area <iepres- 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, 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

24 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [ CHAP -

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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 25

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

26 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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.

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 27

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 (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

28 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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.

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 29

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 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

30 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 31

towards the east and south as would be encountered in these later days.

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 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

32 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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 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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 33

Indus carried with it the entire drainage of the Central Himalayan system.

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-

VOL. I. D

34 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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.

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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 35

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 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

D 2

36 THE INDIAN EMflJKE [CHAP.

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.

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 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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 37

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.

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.

There is naturally a considerable difference of physical The aspect to be noticed between the low flat lands bordering westcrn the Indian Ocean to the north of the Narbada and those of the long strip of Bombay coast to the south. When the

3 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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

rrv

Western ^ e g reat wa ^ f the Western Ghats probably represents the Ghats. primaeval water-divide of the bygone Peninsula as it represents

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 39

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 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

40 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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 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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 41

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.

Between these southern hills and the eastern coast an The Coro- 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.

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.

42 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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 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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 43

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.

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

44 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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 The Godavari river rises in the Nasik hills of Bombay and

X-, J _ . *

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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 45

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, 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.

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

46 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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 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.

Tmran- Travancore, on the other hand, is one of the most picturesque core. 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

i] PHYSICAL ASPECTS 47

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,

r\f tK*> rrrA.it

48 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.

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.

Physical Aspects: India

Physical Aspectsz

THE INDIAN EMPIRE

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