THE EMPIRE OF INDIA PART I CHAPTER I PHYSICAL ASPECTS INDIA is the midmost of three peninsulas which the continent of Asia throws off into the southern seas. On the one side is the Malayan peninsula, a portion of which -Burma-has been incorporated in the Indian Empire. On the other side is Arabia. The southern configuration of the continent of Europe is not dissimilar,-on a miniature scale; but Europe faces to the south the great land expanse of Africa, while Asia looks upon an ocean which flows without a break between her and the giant island of the Antarctic circle. There was a time, in the Mesozoic period of geological chronology, when Asia also fronted a continent that stretched across from India to Madagascar, and occupied a large portion of what is now the Indian Ocean. The peninsula of India is a relic of this lost continent. It was divided from the mainland of Asia by a broad and deep sea channel, at least as extensive as the Mediterranean. Part of this channel has been filled up by river deposits, and now forms the flat expanse of the Indo-Gangetic plain, in which the cities of Lahore, Allahabad and Calcutta are situated. Part of it is now occupied by the southern ranges of the Himalayas, which were thrust up by an upheaval of comparatively recent date, and owe their vastness to the fact that water has not had time to wear down their summits. The Indian Empire then falls into four well-marked regions. There is the peninsula of India, embracing the country that lies south of a line stretching from Karachi to Delhi, and from Delhi to Calcutta, and including an area of 784,000 square miles and a population of 132 millions. There is the Indo-Gangetic plain, lying between the peninsula and the Himalayas, which, with its easternmost extension, forms an expanse of about 300,000 square miles, with a population of 162 millions. There is the Himalayan range which overlooks this plain. And to the east there is Burma, which forms part of a different peninsula, and differs from India proper in its conditions very markedly indeed. Its area may be estimated at 237,000 square miles, and its population at 12 millions. This classification, it should be explained, is so far incomplete that it does not take into account extensions of the Empire across the mountain ranges which, running southwards from the Himalayas, form the natural western and eastern boundaries of the Indo-Gangetic plain. In both cases the boundary has been carried outwards in order to repress marauding by the hill-men. On the western frontier some advance has also been dictated by strategical reasons, which have led to the inclusion of the large excrescence of British Baluchistan. THE PENINSULA The peninsula of India may be described as an elevated plateau, diamond-shaped, with two long sides running southwards and washed by the sea, and two short sides running northwards and abutting on the flat expanse of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Delhi is at its northern extremity. Along its northern boundaries a line of low hills and scarps marks it off from the plain that stretches between it and the Himalayas. Its southern margins are |