SECTION I

EARLY HISTORICAL NOTICES

India is bounded on the north and the east by the Himalaya mountains, on the west by the Indus, and on the south by the sea. Its length from Cashmere to Cape Comorin is 1900 miles; its breadth from Kurrachee in Sinde to Sudiya in Assam, 1500 miles. The superficial area is 1,287,000 miles, and the population under British and native rule is now estimated at 240,000,000. It is crossed from east to west by the Vindhya chain of mountains, at the base of which flows the Nerbudda. The country to the north of this river is generally designated Hindostan, and that to the south the Deccan. Hindostan is composed of the basin of the Indus on one side, and of the Ganges on the other, with the great sandy desert on the west, and an elevated tract now called Central India. The Deccan has on its northern boundary a chain of mountains running parallel with the Vindhya, to the south of which stretches a table-land of triangular form, terminating at Cape Comorin, with the western ghauts on the western coast, and the eastern ghauts, of minor altitude, on the opposite coast. Between the ghauts and the sea lies a narrow belt of land which runs round the whole peninsula.