those exhumed chronicles, by the recovery and deciphering of which such a flood of light is being poured on the remote annals of Western Asia. The Government of India. INDIA! glorious Land of the Sun! as when Chanaan the Holy Land is named, sublime visions of supernal wonders and high thoughts of the mysteries of existence are inspired; as to name the Land of the Nile, august Egypt, presents an imposing picture of combined spiritual mysticism and material sublimity to the mind; as at the names of Greece and Rome arise animating memories of the aspirations and achievements of human genius and heroism; as by the names of Babel and Nineveh prodigious events in the early postdiluvian era, mighty empires, and architectural marvels, are recalled; so the name of India evolves gorgeous ideas of vast and luxuriant regions lying "far away into the golden Orient,"* teeming with wealth, swarming with a picturesque population, and on whose torrid shores beneath the sun of the Burning Zone, roll the waves of mighty Ocean. In a vague and indefinite sense, all the coun * Moore. tries on the continent of Asia bounded by the Suleyman and Himalayan mountains, China, and the sea, with the island of Ceylon, the Maldive and Laccadive groups, and the Asiatic Archipelago, are sometimes classed together under the general denomination of India, or the East Indies. India Proper is bounded south, southeast, and southwest, by the Indian Ocean; north by the northernmost limit of the Himalayan mountain chain; northwest by the Suleyman mountains; and northeast by hills and forests reaching from the Himalayahs to the Bay of Bengal at the east of Chittagong. In geographical position and features, India Proper, on a vastly enlarged scale, greatly resembles Continental Italy. Expanding from the point of Cape Comorin in the south to the long range of the stupendous Himalayahs in the north, India Proper contains from twelve to thirteen hundred thousand square English miles. Immense plains, bordered and traversed by great chains of mountains, well watered by rivers and brooks, lakes and pools, in some parts covered with vast forests, in other districts spreading out in wide open fertile fields, and in another part forming a great sandy desert, constitute the main bulk of the land. In the spacious mountain territory of the Himalayahs |