LONG after the name of India had become familiar in the earliest seats of civilization in the Mediterranean, little more was known of the country designated by it, than that it was a region of vast extent situated in the far East, near the outermost verge of the known world. From the inhabitants themselves no satisfactory information could be obtained. Accustomed to veil everything in mystery, they divided the terrestrial globe into seven doipa or islands, each encompassed by its own peculiar ocean; and placing the habitation of the human race in Jambu-dvipa, which is nearest the centre, and consists partly of Meru, a mountain of gold of enormous height, reaching as far beneath as above the surface, appropriated to themselves one of its most highly favoured localities.1 The notions of the Greeks, though disfigured and obscured by fable, were of a more definite description. Instead of allowing his fancy to run riot, Herodotus diligently consulted the few sources of knowledge within his reach, and honestly communicated the result. According to him, India was, as its name implies, the country drained by the Indus, and consisted of two great divisions—a western, which was included in the Persian empire, and formed the largest, as well as the most productive of the twenty satrapies or provinces into which that empire was then divided; and an eastern, which, stretching beyond the limits supposed to be habitable, terminated in a sandy desert.2 Crude as these ideas are, so little was done to correct or enlarge them, that when Alexander, during his celebrated expedition, first reached the Indus, he mistook it for the Nile. Fortunately he took the most effectual means to undeceive himself, by fitting out a fleet, and giving the command of it to Nearchus, who, after descending the river to its mouth in the ocean, continued his course westwards along the shores of the Arabian Sea, and finally arrived in the Persian Gulf. Alexander, who had accompanied Nearchus in his descent, afterwards accomplished the rest of the distance overland.
Two great routes to India had thus been simultaneously explored. As a natural consequence, regular intercourse with it rapidly increased, and both its figure and dimensions began to be better understood. Ample evidence of this is furnished by the works of Strabo and Ptolemy, and yet it cannot be denied, that with all their industry and sagacity, they have rather distorted than delineated India. The maritime portion, in particular, is miserably curtailed, and its characteristic projection, instead of forming the vertex of a triangle, is converted into the side of a square.3 It is not difficult to account for this serious blunder, which, indeed, is only one of the many which it was impossible to avoid, so long as the only accounts of the country were derived from travellers who reached it by journeying across inhospitable deserts, or navigators who, in the infancy of their art, effected a long and perilous passage by following the windings of the intervening shores. A great advance was made when the Portuguese doubled the Cape of Good Hope. From that time, the Indian coast became accessible in all directions, and its outline was easily traced. To map out the interior was a work of greater difficulty—a work in which little progress could be made while the struggle for supremacy in the East remained undecided. No sooner, however, were the foundations of our Indian empire securely laid, than the necessity of obtaining a thorough knowledge of its surface was urgently felt. Accordingly, in addition to district surveys, one embracing the country in all its length and breadth has been undertaken at the instance of government, and carried on with all the aids which the refinements of modern science supply. In this way, most of the blanks in Indian geography have been filled up, and a map, not unworthy of the vast and magnificent country which it delineates, is advancing to completion.
In the course of the following work the important purposes to which the valuable materials accumulated by these surveys are applicable will often become apparent; but in the meantime it seems impossible to employ them to better account than in furnishing the groundwork of a brief sketch, which, in exhibiting the leading features of the geography of India, will be at once an appropriate introduction and a useful guide to the study of its history.
India, taken in its widest sense as a common name for all the contiguous territories in Asia, which are directly or indirectly subject to British rule, lies between 8° and 37° north latitude, and 66° and 99° east longitude. Within these limits, which extend north and south from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, and west and east from Afghanistan and Baluchistan to the Burma empire, it covers an area of a million and a half of square miles, and contains one hundred and eighty millions of inhabitants. As these enormous numbers are not easily comprehended, a more definite idea may be formed, by considering that the space is about twelve times, and the population six times greater than those of the British Islands. The portion of these vast dominions lying east of the Bay of Bengal, consisting chiefly of acquisitions from the Burmese, are only politically associated with India; and, having few features in common with it, may for the present be left out of view. The other and far larger portion, to which the name of India is more properly applied, forms one compact whole, and is, for the most part, well defined by natural boundaries. According to a division of ancient date, it consists of Hindustan and the Deccan—the former designation meaning the Land of the Hindu, and the latter the Land of the South. The line of demarcation between the divisions is marked by the Vindhya Mountains, which stretch irregularly across the country from sea to sea, between the mouths of the Indus and the Ganges.
Hindustan, thus defined, includes the whole of India which lies contiguous to other parts of the Asiatic continent, and consists almost entirely of two great river basins—that of the Indus in the west, and that of the Ganges in the east. Both basins have a common and magnificent boundary in the north, where the Himalaya, by far the loftiest mountain system in the world, with snowy summits which, measured from the level of the sea, have more than five miles of vertical height, diverges as from a central nucleus in opposite directions—on the one hand, sloping north-west, and giving its waters chiefly to the Indus, and on the other, curving round toward the east, and supplying innumerable feeders to the Ganges. The basin of the Indus has its greatest length from north to south, and, with exception of the beautiful valley of Kashmir and of the Punjab, is remarkable for a barrenness, which, in its lower part, becomes so great that cultivation is confined to the breadth of a few miles on either side of the river, while the adjacent country is converted into a desert. This desert, stretching away to the east and north-east for several hundred miles, has its occasional oases, but is, for the most part, a sandy waste, monotonous and dreary in the extreme.
On entering the basin of the Ganges, a striking contrast is presented. On the north side, the Himalaya, descending by a series of magnificent terraces with parallel or intersecting valleys, approaches the edge of an immense plain of surpassing beauty and fertility, sloping gently from west to east, and traversed near its centre by a majestic river. On both sides, chiefly from the Himalaya, but partly also from the Vindhya range, it is joined by numerous tributaries, which so augment its volume that it becomes in a manner encumbered with its spoils, and unable to carry them along in one undivided channel. Accordingly, in the lower part of its course, it throws off numerous branches, which form a kind of network across its delta. A little lower down it communicates with the Brahmaputra, coming from the east, and carrying a volume of water little if at all inferior to its own. The difficulty of discharge is thus greatly increased, and can only be met by an additional number of outlets. In the dry season, these flow within their banks, and have the appearance of independent streams; but when the waters rise, a sudden overflow takes place, and the whole country is covered for many miles around with one vast inundation. A similar result is produced on the lower flats of the Indus; and one consequence is, that both rivers become far less available for navigation than might be supposed from the volumes of water which they carry. The channels becoming shallow and attenuated in proportion to their number, it is difficult to find any single one which large vessels can safely use.
The two great basins now described do not completely exhaust the whole area included within the Himalaya and the Vindhya range; and therefore it is necessary to mention, that the ramifications of the range cover a considerable tract of great beauty and fertility, which belongs to what has been called Central India, and is drained by the independent basins of the Narmada and the Tapti, which carry its waters west to the Gulf of Cambay.
The Deccan, the other great division of India, is washed by the ocean on all sides but one, and is hence, though not with strict accuracy, usually described as a peninsula. It is in the form of an immense triangle, which rests on the Vindhya range as its base, and terminates in Cape Comorin as its vertex. Of its two sides, one running S.S.E. in an almost unbroken line, faces the Arabian Sea, the other, whose continuity is more broken, lies south-west, and faces the Bay of Bengal. Names so common as not to be unworthy of notice serve to distinguish the lower halves of the sides—that on the west being usually designated as the Malabar, and that on the east as the Coromandel coast.
The structure of the Deccan is very simple. Not far from the opposite extremities of the Vindhya range, whose greatest height is not supposed to exceed 3,000 feet, two mountain chains proceed, and stretch southward in directions nearly parallel to the coasts. That on the west, called the Western Ghats, is continued to Cape Comorin. Its loftiest summits, which are situated between lat. 10° and 15°, rise to about 6,000 feet. Towards the sea, from which it seldom recedes more than forty miles, it is very precipitous; towards the land, which, in many parts, almost equals it in height, its slope is always gradual, and occasionally imperceptible. On both sides it is clothed with magnificent timber, and displays much grand scenery.
The Eastern Ghats is a less elevated and tamer range. Its loftiest summits are not above 3,000 feet, and its distance from the sea is so considerable that the descent is seldom abrupt. In its course southwards, instead of being continued to the extremity, it stops about midway, and turning gradually south-west, meets with a transverse range called the Nilgiri Hills, which have summits exceeding 7,000 feet, and by which it becomes linked with the Western Ghats. In this way a new triangle, with sides composed of mountain ranges, is formed within that of the Deccan, and incloses an elevated table-land, which has a gradual but continuous slope eastward from the Western Ghats to the sea. In accordance with this slope, all the rivers of any magnitude—the Mahanadi, the Godaveri, the Krishna, the Pennar, the Pelar, and the Coleroon or Kaveri, carry the drainage to the Bay of Bengal. This table-land cannot boast the fertility of the basin of the Ganges, because, while it is exposed to a more scorching heat, it has no streams fed by perpetual snow. The torrents of rain, however, which periodically descend on the Western Ghats, compensate in some degree for this defect, and provide the means of a system of irrigation, which, carried on by collecting the superfluous water in immense tanks during the rainy season, at one time made many parts of the Deccan proverbial for beauty and productivity. Unfortunately, in too many districts of the country, and more especially in those where native misrule still continues, many of these tanks are in ruins, and sterility has returned.
The geology of India has not been fully investigated, but what is known seems to show that its leading features are less complicated than those of most other countries. All the great mountain ranges are composed of the rocks usually classified as granitic. In the stupendous heights of the Himalaya gneiss is particularly predominant, and is associated with mica-schist, hornblende-schist, chloride-slate, and primitive limestone. In the chains of the peninsula the same rocks prevail—granite in the south-west and south, and sienite in the south-east, covering a considerable portion of the surface, and composing some of the highest peaks. One great exception to this predominance of granite and its accompanying schists is in the southern portion of the Western Ghats, where these rocks disappear beneath the surface, and are overlaid by a peculiar species of iron clay, which, from its being so soft where it lies as to be easily cut by the spade, and hardening on exposure to the air so as to be fit for building, has received the name of laterite or brick-stone. This mineral, instead of being a mere local deposit, almost assumes the dignity of a distinct formation, continuing with little interruption to the extremity of the continent, and even reappearing beyond it in the Island of Ceylon.
Another great exception to the predominance of granitic rocks is in the upper part of the Western Ghats, and the adjoining ramifications of the Vindhya range. Here basaltic trap, in its various forms of prismatic, columnar, globular, tabular, porphyritic, and amygdaloid, spreads out as an overlying rock, to an extent unequalled, it is believed, in any other part of the world. A very large portion of the table-land of the Deccan is entirely covered by it. Not unfrequently both the trap and the granite pierce the surface abruptly, and rise in precipitous isolated masses of considerable height. Many of these standing out prominently from the surrounding plains and crowned with hill-forts, form the most remarkable features in the landscape.
The more regular strata of the secondary and tertiary periods are largely developed on the lower sides of the Himalaya, and occupy considerable tracts in various other localities. Many of the sandstones and shales of the former period belong to the coal measures; and coal has not only been found at several places, but is actually worked, particularly in the valley of the Damodar in the district of Burdwan, where a coal field with a main seam 9 feet in thickness has been carefully explored, and found to extend over a large area. The proximity of this field to the capital, from which it is about 150 miles north-west, and the facility of carriage by water, and now also by rail, have brought it early into notice; but there cannot be a doubt that there are many other fields equally promising, and, at all events, productive enough to supply the demand about to be created by the establishment of an extensive system of railways. The tertiary formation appears to obtain its greatest breadth in the north-west, towards Sind and the Punjab, from which, and the mountains of adjacent districts, fossil remains of singular forms and gigantic dimensions have recently been brought to enrich our museums.
It must be admitted that, as a mineral country, India has not yet proved its title to a prominent place. Though in ancient times gold was so abundant, that the Indian was the only one of the Persian satrapies which paid its tribute in that precious metal, it has now only a few washings, which are by no means productive. Its diamond mines also, once so famous, have long been exhausted. Besides the coal already mentioned, the only mineral products of much economical value are copper, of which several mines are worked; iron, from which steel of the finest quality is manufactured; nitre, so abundant as to form an important article of export; and salt, said to exist in beds which are inexhaustible.
Of the 28° of north latitude over which India extends, 15° are within the tropical, and 12° within the temperate zone. Taking this fact only into view, it might be easy to give the theory of its climate; but it would merely be to show how widely in this case, as in many others, theory differs from reality. The position of a country relatively to the equator, simply shows how long and how intensely the sun during its annual revolution will shine upon it, but gives no information as to the modifying causes by which, often far more than by degrees of latitude, its climate is determined. In regard to India these causes are so numerous, and operate so differently in different localities, that it may be truly said to have not one, but many climates. Northwards a few degrees from the tropic, it has a region in which snow and ice are never wanting; westwards, it has a desert with the parched plains and scorching heats of the African Sahara; eastwards, it has a deep alluvial basin overcharged with moisture; and southwards, while the isothermal line, indicating the greatest quantity of mean annual heat on the surface of the globe, crosses it obliquely from the Coromandel to the Malabar coast, the Nilgiri Hills, situated nearly in the same latitude, enjoy the climate of the finest part of the temperate zone. Where so many anomalies exist, it would obviously be impossible to give an adequate description, without entering into numerous complicated details; and therefore the utmost which can here be done is to point out a few features which, though much diversified by circumstances, may be considered characteristic of the climate of India.
The most prominent of these features are heat and humidity—heat produced chiefly by the direct action of the sun’s rays, but intensified in many districts by a low level, a naturally arid soil, and sultry winds from other countries; and humidity, not derived, as in Europe, from moderate showers occurring more or less at all seasons, but the result of rains which occur regularly at stated periods, and are so copious and incessant as often to pour down more water in a month than falls in any part of England in a year. In London, the mean annual temperature is 49.35°; in Calcutta it is 79.37°; in Bombay, 81.9°; in Madras, 84.4°. In order to perceive the full effect of these differences, it is necessary to attend to the annual range of temperature, or the number of degrees between the greatest mean heat and the greatest mean cold. In London, this range amounts to no less than 40.3°, whereas in the above three cities it amounts respectively to no more than 11.9°, 10°, and 7.2°. In other words, heat is far more equally diffused in India than in our own island; and the complete cessation of vegetation which takes place in the latter during the rigour of winter, is totally unknown in the former. An equally striking contrast appears in the degrees of humidity. The average annual fall of rain in England is 32 inches. In Bombay, as large a quantity has been known to fall in twelve days, while the average of the year is about 85 inches. On the Malabar coast and many parts of the Western Ghats, even this quantity is largely exceeded, and the average has been estimated at 136 inches. This, however, is only a local extreme. In Calcutta, the range of the fall is from 50 to 85 inches; and on the Coromandel coast, in the neighbourhood of Madras, the annual average of England is supposed not to be exceeded.
The great agents in regulating the climate of India and fixing its character, are the periodical winds known by the name of monsoons. With the interval of about a month, they divide the year between them—the one blowing regularly from the north-east from October to March, and the other from the south-west from April to September. The north-east monsoon is, strictly speaking, identical with the north-east trade-wind, and would accordingly blow without interruption throughout the year, were it not brought under the influence of a great counteracting cause. This is found on the central plains of Asia, which, becoming immoderately heated while the sun is north of the equator, rarify the surrounding air, and thereby disturb the atmospheric equilibrium. To restore it, a current of colder air begins to rush in from the Indian Ocean. A kind of struggle takes place—the north-east monsoon endeavouring to maintain its direction, while the new current endeavours to establish its ascendency. In the struggle, the north-east monsoon is placed at great disadvantage, for at the very time when it is engaged with its opponent, part of its own forces are diverted, and drawn off to the regions where the equilibrium has been disturbed. After a month of warfare, in which all the elements seem to mingle, and thunderstorms and hurricanes rage with the greatest fury, the new current prevails, and becomes established as the south-west monsoon. After blowing for nearly half a year, a new state of the atmosphere is superinduced. The overheated Asiatic plains are cooled down by the sun’s departure for the south, the aerial struggle, with its accompanying thunder and hurricanes, is renewed, and in about a month the north-east monsoon, recovering its superiority, begins again to blow.
The effects of the monsoons in determining the climate of India are very remarkable. The south-west monsoon, in blowing over the Indian Ocean, becomes surcharged with vapour, which, being suddenly condensed on the heights of the Western Ghats, is discharged in torrents. Thus deprived of its contents as fast as it arrives on the Malabar coast, it blows across the country, and arrives at the Coromandel coast as a dry wind. This coast, accordingly, and the eastern part of the Deccan, generally at this time receive no direct supplies of rain, and become in consequence so parched, that the culture of the ground would become impossible, were it not that most of the rivers, having their sources in the Western Ghats, become filled to overflowing, and thus furnish the means of carrying on an extensive system of irrigation. Beyond the limits of the Western Ghats, the low plains near the mouths of the Indus, and the sandy desert to the east and north, are unable to attract any moisture from the monsoon, which now arrives well charged with water on the heights of the Himalaya. Being here deflected, it descends into the basin of the Ganges, and floods the lower plains of Bengal. The south-west monsoon having run its course, the north-east monsoon repeats the process, though on a somewhat minor scale, because the Bay of Bengal, from which the moisture is derived, is of less extent, and therefore unable to supply it so copiously.1
The course of the seasons in India will now be easily understood. In the British Islands, and in the temperate zone generally, winter, spring, summer, and autumn succeed each other, and the year performs its round of grateful vicissitudes. In India an entirely different arrangement takes place; and the only seasons which can be properly recognized are the rainy, the cool, and the hot. The boundaries between them are not very exactly defined, because the rains, which may be considered as the commencement of the year, do not begin, even on the same side of the continent, at the same period. On the Malabar coast, for instance, they are retarded in proceeding northwards, and have copiously flooded some districts at least a month before they begin to fall in others. As India lies wholly on the north side of the equator, the cool and the hot seasons should correspond nearly with our own winter and summer; but without entering too much into detail, and specifying the peculiarities of different districts, it is almost impossible to make any statement, in general terms, which would not mislead. The best mode of illustrating the seasons will therefore be to select a particular locality, and give a short description of its year. Calcutta being adopted for this purpose, the cycle will be as follows. After nearly a month of storms, connected with the setting in of the monsoon, the rains commence about the beginning of June, and continue, with occasional short intervals, till the middle of October. A brief stormy period ensues, and then, in November, the air having previously cleared up, the cool season begins. At first the weather is fair and pleasant, and the sky, generally free from clouds, is of a deep blue. In December, fogs become frequent towards evening, and continue unbroken till the morning sun disperses them. Both in this month and in January, the thermometer ranges from 47° to 78°, but the air feels colder than the lower of these numbers might be expected to indicate. Cold but bracing winds from the north and west doubtless contribute to this result. In February, the thermometer begins to rise, and generally before it closes the hot season has commenced. During the three following months the heat continues to increase, but is greatly relieved by winds and storms till May, when an oppressive stillness prevails, at once unnerving the body and depressing the mind. With this disagreeable month the season closes, and the annual cycle again begins.
In heat and humidity, India possesses the two main agents of luxuriant vegetation. On its lower plains the most valuable plants of the tropics are indigenous or acclimatized, and on its loftier heights forests of the noblest trees, several of them of a peculiar type, furnish inexhaustible supplies of the finest timber, including the teak, which covers the rugged terraces of the Western Ghats. Equally deserving of notice are the magnificent woody amphitheatres which rise successively on the Himalaya, till the limits of the vegetable kingdom are approached. Among the plants which belong exclusively to India, or, while possessed in common with other countries, are so widely diffused over it as to form a leading feature in its botany, are the bamboo, which, though truly a grass, shoots up in one season to the height of 60 feet, and in another becomes so consolidated in its texture as to supply most of the ordinary, and some of the ornamental purposes to which timber is applied; palms in almost endless variety, including the cocoa-nut palm—the most useful of its class—the sago, the areca, and the great fan-palm—a majestic tree, with a leaf of such extraordinary dimensions that a dozen men could take shelter under it; the babal tree, one of the most beautiful and useful of acacias; the sandal-wood tree, valued in the East for the perfume, and in Europe for the dye which it yields; spice-bearing plants and trees, including among others the pepper-vine, which entwines among the cocoa and other palms of the Malabar coast, and forms a considerable article of export; the bread-fruit tree, the banana, and above all the mango, at once the finest and the most widely diffused of all the fruit-trees of which India can boast. Among the cultivated plants which are important as staple articles of food, are rice, maize, wheat, millet, barley, varieties of pulse, yams, sweet potatoes, &c. Among those most deserving of notice, from furnishing the raw materials of manufacture and export, are cotton, flax, hemp, indigo, and various dyes; cardamoms and other spices, sugar-cane, tobacco, and opium.
The zoology of India is no less rich and varied than its botany. Among quadrupeds the first place is unquestionably due to the elephant, which, besides living wild in herds, has from time immemorial been domesticated, and is usually employed in all labours in which strength and singular sagacity are required. The buffalo and yak have also been domesticated; and the camel is reared in considerable numbers in the west, particularly on the borders of the desert, which it is employed to traverse. Among the animals which have not been subjected to the dominion of man, the most remarkable for size and strength is the one-horned rhinoceros; for ferocity, the tiger, lion, leopard, panther, hyena, and jackal; for forms often humbling to human pride, numerous species of monkeys; and for swiftness, or some other property which singles them out for the chase, the argali, or wild sheep, the wild goat, the wild ass, the bear, the wild boar and wild hog, the chickara, or four-horned antelope, the great rusa stag, nearly as large as a horse, the saumer, or black rusa of Bengal, the hog-deer, the Nepal stag, and many other varieties of the cervine tribe. The birds include several species of the vulture and eagle, wild peacocks, pheasants, and in great profusion cockatoos, parrots, and paroquets, of gorgeous plumage or singular articulating powers. Though not a permanent resident anywhere, the gigantic stork makes its appearance in large flocks during the rains, and renders essential service by destroying snakes and other noxious reptiles, and by plying the trade of scavenger, for which nature evidently intended it. On passing to the lower orders of the animal kingdom, the transition is disagreeable, for it brings us to the hideous alligators, abundant in most streams, and more especially in those of the Indus and Ganges, and to large and venomous snakes which infest both the land and the water, and are so numerous that forty-three varieties, including the deadly cobra de capello, have been described as of common occurrence. Hastening from these to the fishes, both the coasts and the rivers present us with numerous varieties, often in unlimited abundance and excellent for food. As particularly distinguished in the latter respect, it may suffice to notice the leopard-mackerel and the mango fish, the one measuring 3 feet, and the other occasionally 4 feet in length. Both frequently find a place on the tables of European residents.
The inhabitants of India would next claim attention; but as a full account of them will necessarily be interwoven in the course of the work, it may here suffice to mention that they consist mainly of two great classes—Muhammedans and Hindus. The former, amounting only to about a tenth of the whole population, are far more influential than their numbers imply, because, having been the dominant race before European ascendency was established, they have never entirely lost the wealth and power which this position gave them, and in most native States are under the government of princes of their own faith. The Hindus, though classed under a common name, by no means represent a single race, but exhibit numerous varieties, even in physical form; and, instead of all speaking the same language, have dialects, founded indeed, for the most part, on the Sanskrit, which is no longer spoken, but differing as much from each other as those languages of Europe which have the Latin for their common basis.
In the preceding narrative, attention has been drawn only to the physical geography of India, or to the features which nature herself has indelibly impressed upon it, and the most remarkable objects presented by its mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. As yet nothing has been said of another department of geography—that which treats of the artificial divisions introduced for administrative purposes, or in consequence of political changes. These, though they necessarily partake of the instability which attaches to all human arrangements, serve many important purposes, and, in fact, furnish the vocabulary which must be used when particular localities are referred to, or the events of which they have been the theatre are described. A thorough knowledge of this vocabulary is only to be obtained by a diligent study of the map; but for ordinary purposes a more cursory knowledge may suffice, at least so far as to prevent the perplexity which might be caused by the frequent use of names of which no previous information had been given. With the view of furnishing such a knowledge, and guarding against this perplexity, a summary of the political geography of India, in accordance with actually subsisting arrangements, and compressed within the narrowest possible compass, is here subjoined.
At present, not much more than the half of India is in the undivided possession of Great Britain. Two European nations still linger at a few insignificant spots—the Portuguese at Goa on the west coast, and at Diu on the north-west, between the Gulfs of Kutch and Cambay; and the French at Pondicherry and Karikal, on the east coast, at Mahe, on the south-west coast, and at Chandernagore on the Hooghly, above Calcutta. Two native States—Bhutan and Nepal, situated on the southern slopes of the Himalaya—are nominally independent. All the other native States are under a British protectorate of greater or less stringency. Of these States in the upper and inland portion of India, the most extensive are Sindhia’s dominions, capital Gwalior, stretching from the Tapti north to the banks of the Chambal; Holkar’s dominions, capital Indore, much intersected by those of Sindhia, which bound them on the north; and Rajputana, consisting of a great number of States, which, though individually small, have a large aggregate area, and reach from Sindhia’s dominions west to the frontiers of Sind. In the south-west of the same portion of the country, are the Gaikwar’s territories, capital Baroda, and the rajahship of Kutch, capital Bhuj. In the Deccan, or southern and maritime portion of India, the most extensive native States are—the Nizam’s dominions, capital Hyderabad, area 95,337 square miles, by far the largest territory under any single native chief, consisting of a compact and central portion of the peninsular plateau, bounded north by the Vindhya range, south by the Krishna, east and north-east by the Godaveri, and west by an indefinite line near the last slopes of the Western Ghats; Mysore, the country of the famous Hyder Ali and Tipu Sahib, capital Seringapatam, area 30,886 square miles, consisting of a lofty table-land within the angle which is formed by the junction of the Eastern and Western Ghats; and Travancore, capital Trivendrum, area 4,722 square miles, forming the south-west portion of the extremity of the peninsula.
The whole of the native States and the Portuguese and French possessions have an area of 631,470 square miles, and a population of 49,074,527. The whole of the remainder—area 824,232 square miles, population 130,897,195—is British territory, which has the seat of its government at Calcutta, the capital of all India, and is comprehended in the presidencies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay.
The presidency of Bengal—area 517,839 miles, population 38,883,337—includes all the British territories within the basins of the Indus and Ganges, with exception of Sind. It also includes Assam and the annexed territories of the Burmese, and the province of Cuttack, extending south to Ganjam on the east coast of the Deccan, where it bounds with what are called the Northern Sarkars, belonging to Madras. Being by far the largest and most populous of the three, the presidency of Bengal is subdivided into Bengal proper and the North-western Provinces, each having its own lieutenant-governor. The line of demarcation between them is nearly in the direction of the meridian of 84°, the whole of the presidency east of that line belonging to the one, and all west of it to the other. Strictly speaking, the North-western Provinces include only the six great divisions of Benares, Allahabad, Agra, Rohilkhand, Meerut, and Delhi. The Punjab and Oudh are thus left out, because, though they are doubtless destined to be formally incorporated with this subdivision, they are still, in consequence of their recent acquisition, under a separate administration.
The presidency of Madras—area 132,090 square miles, population 22,437,297—bounds with that of Bengal, near lat. 18°, and continues south, along the east and south-east coast of the peninsula to Cape Comorin, with no interruption, except from the interposed French districts of Pondicherry and Karikal. At Cape Comorin, it is cut off from the sea by the interjected native States of Travancore and Cochin; but beyond them it again becomes maritime, and continues north along the coast of Malabar, till it meets the presidency of Bombay, near the district of Goa. It has a very irregular shape. At first, when it commences with the Northern Sarkars, it is so hemmed in between the Bay of Bengal and the east frontiers of the Nizam’s dominions, that it consists only of a comparatively narrow belt. The same thing happens in the west, where it is similarly hemmed in between the Arabian Gulf and the west frontiers of Mysore. Near the middle, between the mouths of the Krishna and the Pennar, it widens out and stretches so far west between these two native States as to approach the Western Ghats. Further south, between the city of Madras and Palk’s Strait, it extends across the whole peninsula, from sea to sea.
The presidency of Bombay—area 120,065 square miles, population 14,109,067—is, from similar causes, as irregular in shape as the presidency of Madras. Beginning near Goa, it continues northwards in a long and narrow strip, and then widening out, becomes so intermingled with the native States as to make it almost impossible to define its boundaries. Sindh, which has recently been added to it, and forms the three collectorates of Shikarpur, Hyderabad, and Karachi, is by far its most compact province.
The above narrative of the physical and political geography of India seemed necessary in order to furnish information which some might not possess, and remove the indistinct, if not erroneous impressions which it is difficult to avoid, in endeavouring to form an acquaintance with a country so remote, so vast, and so extraordinary. By exhibiting it on a scale so reduced that the mind is neither overpowered by the magnitude, nor perplexed by the variety and singularity of its features, a kind of unity is given to it, and it assumes the appearance of a stage on which great actors are to appear, and wonderful achievements are to be performed. In this way, the history acquires a simplicity which it might not otherwise possess, a deeper interest is felt in the narrative, and the important lessons drawn from it become at once more obvious, intelligible, and impressive.
The History of India embraces three distinct periods—an ancient, a medieval, and a modern. The ancient period, beginning with the earliest authentic accounts, extends to the establishment of a Muhammadan dynasty. The medieval period terminates with the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, and the consequent discovery of a continuous oceanic route to the East. The modern period, commencing with the great changes introduced by this discovery, is continued down to the present time. The last of these periods, forming the proper subject of the present history, will be treated with a fulness proportioned to its intrinsic importance, and the interest it derives from its intimate connection with British history. The other two could not be omitted without leaving the work incomplete, but being only subordinate, will not occupy more than a few preliminary chapters.