The great Indian Desert comprehends 150,000 square miles, or upwards of one-eighth of the whole surface of the country. It is not so sterile as cor responding districts in Western Asia and Africa. There are many oases, contain ing a considerable extent of cultivated land; and generally the sandy tracts are overgrown with coarse grass and jungle shrubs after the periodical rains. This vegetation perishes completely in the hot months, and, during that interval, the aspect of the Sahara is exhibited.

The Runn of Cutch is a remarkable flat region north of the Gulf of Cutch, and east of the Indus, equal in extent to nearly one-fourth of the area of Ireland. Through great part of the year it has a dry, hard bottom, without weeds or grass, sustaining a few tamarisks; but when the sea runs high, as during the monsoons, the water of the Gulf is driven over it, and its surface has afterwards a saline incrustation, owing to the evaporation of the sea-water.

India Proper is the north part of the country, between the Himalayas and the Nerbuddah river, where the triangular peninsula commences, the south country, or Deccan. The east coast of the peninsula is usually styled the Coromandel Coast; the west, Malabar.

1. The

327. The rivers of India are of a magnitude proportioned to its other features of mountain, table-land, and plain. The Ganges, Brahmapootra, and Indus, rank with the largest streams of the Old World, and have a common origin in the snows of the Himalaya. The two former descend from opposite slopes, and after a long separate course, come to a partial confluence at their embouchure in the Bay of Bengal, where they divide into many channels, and form an extensive delta. The latter rises on the northern slope, cuts its way southward through the mountains, and follows the same general direction to the Arabian Sea. Ganges is formed by the union of two streams, the principal of which issues from a glacier near the temple of Gungootree, at the height of 13,672 feet, flowing at once in a broad and very rapid current. It leaves the mountains below Hurdwar, and traverses the plain of Bengal in a south-easterly direction, receiving many tributaries larger than the Rhine. At Allahabad, 800 miles from the sea, where the Jumna mingles with it, the river is about a mile across. At the direct distance of 220 miles from the sea, the delta of the Ganges commences. While the main stream flows on to meet a branch from the Brahmapootra, it throws off westerly branches, which unite to form the Hoogly, the river which passes Calcutta, and the channel commonly navigated. The coast of the delta extends upwards of 200 miles. Its area is as large as the principality of Wales. The islands which compose it, formed by the numerous winding water-courses, are called the Sonderbunds, or woods. The whole district is swampy and unhealthy, overgrown with forests and jungle, sheltering

tigers, rhinoceroses, and other wild animals, while crocodiles swarm in the waters. It is calculated that the traffic of the entire river-system gives employment to not less than 300,000 boatmen. 2. The Brahmapootra, "offspring of Brahma," also called Lohit, the "Red River," has a shorter course than the Ganges, but brings down a much larger volume of water. Its sources have not been explored, and 'ts affluents from the Burmese empire are very little known. For some distance towards its termination, the uniform width is from four to five miles. 3. The Indus has one of its head streams near the sacred lake Manasarora, “the mental or spiritual lake," in Thibet, while one of its affluents, the Sutlej, is connected with the lake itself. It forms an extensive delta, presenting a face of 120 miles to the ocean, but its course through the delta is proverbial for inconstancy, and there is no known river, of even half its size, which is so inferior for navigable purposes, owing to the want of depth. The principal affluent, the Chenab from the east, unites in its channel the celebrated streams of the Punjaub or the Five Rivers, which enumerated from east to west, are the Sutlej (Zaradrus of Ptolemy), the Beeas (Hyphasis of Arrian), the Ravee (Hydrastes of Arrian), the Chenab (Acesines), and the Jhelum (Hydaspes). At or near Attock in the Punjaub, it is generally supposed that Alexander the Great crossed the Indus on his invasion of India in the spring of 326, B.C., as also Tamerlane in A.D. 1398, and Nadir Shah in 1738.

The Ganges, Brahmapootra, and Indus, especially the two former rivers, periodically inundate vast tracts of country, owing to the melting of the snows in the Himalaya, and the seasonal rains. They accomplish then by far the greatest part of their annual discharge of water, as appears from the following result of observations obtained with reference to the Ganges, by the Rev. Mr. Everest, in 1831, at Ghazipúr, in Bengal:

When the river is in flood, the movements of the ocean in its channels are subordinate to the force of the current, and the delta gains in height and extent by the earthy matter deposited. At other seasons, the flux and reflux of the tide have the ascendency, and the ocean makes havoc with the newly-formed so il.

Flowing from mountains of unrivalled altitude, then traversing an alluvial plain, and not clearing itself in deep lakes, the Ganges brings down an enormous amount of sediment in its waters, which discolours the sea at the distance of sixty miles from the coast. The authority just cited estimates the quantity as follows:

The magnitude of this result may be appreciated from the statement, that supposing the Great Pyramid of Egypt, which covers eleven acres, and rises to the height of about 500 feet, were a solid mass of granite, the amount of sediment annually carried down by the Ganges would more than equal in weight and bulk 42 of the pyramids. Or, it would require a fleet of 2,000 ships, each freighted with about 1,400 tons weight of sediment, to go down the Ganges daily, to transport the quantity annually removed by the river.

The other important rivers are the Godavery, Kishna, and Cauvery, flowing to the east coast of the peninsula; the Taptee and Nerbuddah, entering the Gulf of Cambay on the west.

328. India has been renowned from the earliest ages for the value and variety of its natural productions, belonging to the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms. The spontaneous produce of the soil includes jungle-grasses and shrubs in dense masses, forests of teak, used in shipbuilding, ebony; sandal-wood, caoutchouc, and sapan-trees, so important for their extreme hardiness, splendid specimens of tree-ferns and orchideous plants, gigantic palms and bamboos, and the remarkable banyan-tree, a single specimen of which is a grove in miniature. The principal products cultivated for food or commerce are rice (the chief native diet), bananas, cocoa-nuts, the sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo, opíum, and tobacco-plants, the tea-tree in Assam, the mulberry for the silk-worm, the castor-oil and various medicinal shrubs, roses, the betel, and other peppers.— Almost every order of the animal creation is represented by numerous species and multitudinous forms. Of the larger quadrupeds, the elephant and buffalo occur wild and domesticated, the rhinoceros in the more secluded forests of the north-east, the camel and wild ass in the sandy regions of the north-west, the bear in all the woody mountains, the Asiatic lion in the northern provinces, the tiger generally in all the jungles up to the glaciers of the Himalayas, the shawl-goat in the more elevated portions of the range, with panthers, leopards, ounces, hyenas, varieties of deer, and monkeys in vast profusion, multiplied because respected as a sacred animal. Birds of splendid appearance occur in great numbers, with others of species common to Europe, as the cuckoo, common sparrow, and snipe. Reptiles also abound, harmless and venomous; and insect life is in

tensely developed, owing to the profuse vegetation.-The important mineral products include extensive beds of coal in various localities, deposits of rock-salt in the northwest of the Punjaub, iron widely diffused, diamonds found in alluvial soil, and other precious gems in the beds of the rivers.

The banyan, or peepul-tree (Ficus Indica), emits roots from its branches, which, descending to the earth, fix themselves in it, become trunks, and extend themselves in like manner. A remarkable example on the Nerbuddah river is described as affording a circle of foliage and shade of 600 yards in circumference.

Sugar is one of the most ancient products of India. We have its European designation from its Sanscrit name sukkhar, as also sugar-candy from sukkhar kund.

The tea-tree occurs wild in Assam. Its cultivation there has been attempted with success, and is now in process in various Himalayan districts.

The original stock of our domestic fowls is wild in the jungles of India.

The diamond mines of Golconda, once so famous, are not at the fort of that name near Hydrabad, but at the base of the Nella Malha Mountains, a part of the Eastern Ghauts, between the Krishna and Pennair rivers. The mines are now exhausted and deserted; but diamonds are still found in the neighbourhood. The Koh-e-Noor diamond was found in 1550, on the banks of the Godavery.

329. In a political point of view, the country consists of territories under the immediate government of Great Britain, and of states under the rule of native princes, subordinate in their general policy to British direction, and of a few independent districts, with some possessions held by the French and Portuguese. 1. British India is divided into three presidencies :-Bengal, which includes the alluvial plains of the Ganges and Brahmapootra, and the recentlyannexed country of the five rivers, or the Punjaub; Madras, extending along the east coast of the peninsula, and embracing a portion of the south-western; and Bombay, occupying the west coast, from the Gulf of Cambay to near Goa, to which the newly-acquired territory of the Lower Indus or Scinde, has been attached. The total area somewhat exceeds the half of all India, and the population is supposed to be about 90,000,000. Each presidency has a governor, appointed co-ordinately by the East India. Company and the crown, the governor of Bengal being at the same time governor-general.

Presidencies.

Chief Towns.

Bengal ...... Calcutta, Patna, Allahabad, Benares, Agra, Delhi, Lahore.
Madras..... Madras, Bangalore, Seringapatam.

Bombay..... Bombay, Surat, Poonah, Hyderabad in Scinde.

Calcutta, the seat of the supreme government, and the

capital of all India, in lat. 22° 33′ N. long. 88° 28′ E. is situated on the left bank of the Hoogly river, about a hundred miles from the sea. It is accessible to ships of

large size, is protected by the remarkably strong citadel of Fort William, and contains a motley population of Europeans and Asiatics of almost all nations, amounting probably to 500,000, including the suburbs. British India consists of territories obtained not by conquest merely, but by cession from their rulers, who, incapable of maintaining themselves against hostile attacks, relinquished the task of real government, and placed it in stronger hands. These princes enjoy still a nominal sovereignty, and keep up the pageant of a court, receiving an annual stipend for that purpose. 2. Among the states more or less dependent and controlled, the most important are the dominions of the Nizam or the kingdom of Hydrabad, in the Deccan; the kingdom of Nagpoor, north of the preceding district; the kingdom of Baroda, on both sides of the Gulf of Cambay ; the kingdom of Oude, in the basin of the middle Ganges; Rajpootana, between the Indus and the Ganges, divided among a number of petty rajahs; and Scindiah, an extensive irregular district in central India. 3. The territories which may still be considered independent are Nepaul, extending along the slope of the central Himalayas, from the crest of the main chain to the Gangetic plain; and Bhotan, similarly situated between the eastern Himalayas and the Brahmapootra valley, but to some extent tributary to China. 4. The French hold some small detached districts, forming the single government of Pondicherry on the east coast; and the Portuguese retain the territory of Goa on the west coast, with the islet of Diu at the most southern point of Gujerat. The Danish possessions of Tranquebar and Serampore passed by purchase into the hands of the East India Company in the year 1845.

330. The population of India is estimated at 130,000,000 souls, the great majority being the aborigines or Hindoos, though there is a very considerable number of foreign extraction, partly Asiatic and partly European. The foreigners of Asiatic origin are principally Afghans, located in the north-western provinces; Arabs, numerous on the coast of Malabar; some Syrian Christians in the same quarter; and a colony of Parsees or Persians, chiefly found