India and its problems

Front matter

IN.

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Part I— Physical Characteristics Chapter I The Himalayas Page

Vastness and variety of India ..... 3

Object of the present volume ..... 5

Four separate and well-defined regions of India : the Himalayas,

Hindustan, the Deccan, and Burmah ... 5

The Himalayas, not a mere range of mountains, but a mountainous country ....... 6

Comparison between the Himalayas and the Alps . . 7

Vegetable and animal products of the Himalayas . . 10

The Himalayas a rampart for the Indian Empire against

invaders from Asia . . . . . .11

And a vast reservoir for Hindustan . . . .11

The three great rivers of Hindustan issue from them . . 11

Chapter II Hindustan

By Hindustan is meant the country lying to the north of the Vindhyan range : the wide plains watered by the Himalayan rivers and the region round them . . 13

This country divided into five provinces, besides the recently created frontier province : —

First, the Punjab, the country of the five rivers : a vast alluvial

plain, specially fertile in the Eastern portions . . 14

Second, Sind, for political purposes included in the Bombay

Presidency: an almost rainless district . . . 14

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Third, Rajputana, the country of the Rajputs : fertile where PAOK watered by the drainage of the Vindhyan range, and possessing much undeveloped mineral wealth . . 14

Fourth, The North-West Provinces and Oudh, occupying well-nigh the whole of the basins of the Ganges and the Jumna : a vast expanse of monotonous verdure . 15

Fifth, Bengal, consisting chiefly of the two wide alluvial

valleys of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra . . 15

Sixth, Assam, including the higher valleys of the Brahmaputra, and those of the Barak or Surma, together with the mountainous watershed intervening between those two rivers . . . . . . .15

Products of Hindustan . . . . . 15

Chapter III The Deccan

By the Deccan is meant the triangular peninsula which has the Vindhya Mountains as its base and Cape Comorin as its apex ........ 18

But the Vindhya Mountains must not be dissociated from the Aravalli range, the southern slopes of which are drained by the Nerbudda, or from the Satpur hills in which the Tapti rises ....... 18

And as the tableland, constituting the Deccan, has the Vindhya Mountains for its base, so is it supported on either side by the Eastern and Western Ghats, which give the key to the configuration of the peninsula . . .19

Chief districts of this division of India : —

First, Central India, made up of the nine Political Agencies, among which are included the dominions of Scindia and Holkar, a territory for the most part fertile and well wooded ...... 20

Second, the country of the Guicowar : an open fertile tract . 21

Third : the Central Provinces, a country of highlands and valleys, of plateaus and plains, only one-third of the whole area of which is under cultivation . 21

Fourth : the Nizam’s country, considerably elevated, and

generally fertile . . . . . .22

Fifth : the Bombay Presidency, divided by the Nerbudda into two portions : the northern a low plain of alluvial origin, the southern a level coast strip rising into an upland country .....

SUMMARY xi

Sixth : the Madras Presidency, watered by the Godavery, the PAGE Kistna, and the Cauvery, and presenting three natural divisions : the long and broad east coast, the shorter and narrower west coast, and the central tableland which, however, goes considerably beyond the limits of Madras ...... 22

Products of Southern India . . . . .23

Chapter IV Burmah

Burmah, a country of hills, forests, streams, and abundant rainfall : through its centre flows the Irawadi . . .24

Four natural divisions of Burmah : —

First, the central valley : watered by the Irawadi and the

Second : the province of Arakan, divided from it by the Yoma range, and running down to the Bay of Bengal : watered by the Kuladan . . . . .25

Third : the mountainous country of the Shans, east of the Irawadi, running up to the Chinese frontier : watered by the Salween ...... 26

Fourth : the province of Tenasserim, a long, isolated, southern coast strip : watered by the Salween, the Attaran, and the Tavoy ...... 26

Products of Burmah ...... 26

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands may be regarded as the emerging summits of a submarine range of hills, linking the Arakan Yoma to the central hill range of Sumatra 27

Part Ii.— Races, Languages, And Literature Chapter V Races

The Aborigines of India, probably Kolarians . . .31

Mongolian and Dravidian invaders . . . -32

Aryan invaders, who drive the Mongolians into the Himalayas and beyond the Ganges, and the Dravidians into the Deccan ....... 32

Scythian and Mohammedan invaders . . . -33

Present racial constituents of the population of India . . 34

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Chapter VI Languages

PAGB

Sanskrit nearest to the language of the ancient Aryans . . 36

The Prakrit dialects ...... 37

The modern Aryan languages of India . . . .38

The Dravidian languages ...... 39

The Kolarian dialects ...... 39

The Tibeto-Burman languages . . . . -39

CHAPTER VII The non-Aryan languages of India contain little of high literary

And the modern Aryan tongues nothing . . . .42

The only Indian literature of much real intrinsic merit, the

The Vedic Hymns ...... 42

The Brahmanas ....... 44

The Puranas ....... 44

The Tantras ....... 45

The Ramayana ....... 45

The Mahabharata ...... 45

The Raghu-vansa and the Kumarasambhava . . .49

The Sanskrit drama ...... 49

The Upanishads ....... 49

CHAPTER VIII Scantiness of the materials for a knowledge of Hindu India . 55

Historic value of the Mahabharata (1426 B.C.), and the Ramayana (about 1000 B.C.) . . . . .56

And of the Laws of Manu (about 500 B.C.) . . -57

India in the time of Sakya-Muni (about 550 B.C.) . . 57

Alexander’s invasion (327 B.C.) . . . . .58

The account of Megasthenes (300 B.C.) . . . -59

SUMMARY Xlll

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Buddhist India ....... 61

The accounts of Fa Hian (400), Sung Yun (518), and Hiouen-

The disappearance of Buddhism from India . . 64

Chapter IX

The thousand years of Buddhist supremacy in India, followed by a thousand years of Mohammedan invasion and conquest ....... 65

First incursion of the Moslems into India (604) . . .66

Arab invasion of Sind with a regular army under Mohammed

His conquests and tragic fate . . . . .66

Mohammed of Ghazni’s seventeen expeditions into India (1001-

1030) ....... 68

The Somnath legend ...... 69

Merits and defects of Mohammed of Ghazni . . .70

Tamerlane’s invasion (1398) . . . . .76

Baber, the sixth in descent from him, invades India in 1526, and winning the first battle of Panipat, founds the Moghul Empire ...... 77

The Hindu monarchies of the Deccan . . . -77

In 1556 Akbar, Baber’s grandson, then aged thirteen, wins the second battle of Panipat over the Afghans, who had dethroned his father Humayon . . . .79

And succeeds as Emperor next year upon Humayon’s death

(1556-1605) 79

The affair of Beiram ...... 79

AkbaPs victories, administration, and character . . .81

The later Moghuls ....... 96

The third Battle of Panipat (1761), and the dissolution of the

Moghul Empire ...... 97

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Chapter X

Difficulty of realising in how short a time the British Empire PAGE in India has grown up . . . .98

The East India Company ...... 99

The beginnings of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta . .100

Struggles with the Portuguese and Dutch in the seventeenth

And with the French in the eighteenth century . . . 100

Arthur Wellesley’s work in India . . . . .106

Lord William Bentinck (1828-1835) .... 109

CHAPTER XI Difficulty of accurately defining Hinduism . . .119

The Rig- Veda , the work of transcendent authority on the beliefs

and practices which constitute it . . . .120

The Vedic religion the first phase of the polytheistic idea of the universe still dominating the minds of the great majority of the people of India . . . .120

SUMMARY XV

The gods of the Vedas personifications of physical forces and PAGE phenomena : no mention in those books of the features of modern Hinduism most repugnant to the European mind. ....... 121

The Vedic religion passes into Brahminism — how we have no means of determining — as its naturalism is metaphysically construed and sacerdotally developed in the Braktnanas ....... 121

In caste we have the explanation of this second phase of the

Indo-Aryan religion . . . . .122

But while the Brahmins were building up a stupendous system of rites, they were busy with the philosophic speculations enshrined in the Upanishads . . . .122

Buddhism, a development of and a reaction against Brahminism,

though Sakya-Muni was no conscious revolutionist . 124

Within two or three centuries after the Buddha’s death (b.c.

543) it becomes the fashionable religion of India, but practically disappears by the tenth century of our era . 125

During those thousand years a great transformation takes place in the Brahminical religion : the Vedas give place to the Puranas , and the worship of Siva becomes general . 125

Characteristics of modern Hinduism . . . .129

Not an ethical religion . . . . . .130

But a mass of superstitions . . . . .131

Resources of the religious sentiment . . . .13 7

CHAPTER XII Buddhism perhaps the most interesting to us of all the religions

Some account of it . ...... 139

Jainism possibly a survival of it ..... 144

Mohammedanism ....... 145

The religion of the Parsis . . . . . .151

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Chapter XIII

Widespread desire in England and the United States for the PAGE conversion of India to Christianity. How far is that desire likely to be gratified ? . . . .154

Christianity in India in primitive and medieval times . .154

Catholic missions in India in the sixteenth century . 1 55

Present position of the Catholic Church in India . .157

Protestant missionaries first appear in India in the eighteenth

Insignificant results as yet achieved by them . . .160

Causes of their ill success . . . . . .161

Small prospect that Protestantism, in any of its varieties, will make substantial progress in India : the outlook for Catholicism not much more hopeful . . .162

Testimony of the Abbe Dubois . . . . .162

Other testimony ....... 163

Sir Alexander Arbuthnot’s opinion of the value of the labour of

the missionaries ...... 169

CHAPTER XIV The blessing of peace bestowed on India by the British

Government ...... 174

Three-eighths of the country under the immediate sway of native

Some account of them . . . . . .174

The provinces directly under British rule . . .176

How governed . . . . . . .176

The Legislative Councils . . . . . .177

Indian districts and their administration .... 177

The judicial system . . . . . .179

SUMMARY XVII

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Causes which mar the administration of justice in India . 181

Indian finance ....... 182

Systems of land tenure . . . . .185

Other taxes ....... 187

Material progress of India under British rule . . .187

Excess of exports over imports . . . . .188

Indefensible charges on the Indian revenues . . 189

Blemishes on British rule ...... 19°

CHAPTER XV Differing opinions on the merits and demerits of caste . 194

Origin of the present fourfold system .... 195

How the exclusiveness of castes is maintained . . .199

Position of the Brahmins at the apex of Hindu civilisation . 200

Vast number of extra castes and sub-castes . . . 201

Caste rules and regulations ..... 201

The vast majority of the Hindus tenaciously cling to caste . 204

But the exigencies of modern life war against its strict observance ....... 204

Prospects of the caste system ..... 205

CHAPTER XVI The people of India a dense population of husbandmen . 206

Great antiquity of the social, economical, and religious institutions of an Indian village ..... 206

Importance of the barber ...... 207

Of the astrologer ....... 207

Of the purohit ....... 207

Hindu houses ...... 214

Chapter XVII

A chief test of a social order, and a sure index to its character, PAGE

afforded by the position which it assigns to woman . 218

The place of woman in modern civilisation unquestionably due

to Christianity . . . . .218

In India the one faith whose ethos has most in common with

the Christian — Buddhism — the most favourable to woman 22 1

Though Mohammed’s reform did something for woman, her

condition in Islam one of semi-slavery . . .221

The position of woman in modern Hinduism indicates how vastly that system has degenerated from the ancient Vedic religion, where husband and wife were joint rulers of the Aryan household ..... 223

Servile state of Hindu wives ..... 223

The lot of Hindu widows harder still .... 225

Marriage among the Hindus ..... 225

Only in the rarest of cases are Hindu wives companions to

their husbands ...... 230

A Hindu gentleman desiring a companion of the other sex

usually seeks her among dancing girls . . .231

Some account of those women ..... 232

CHAPTER XVIII Desire, in certain quarters, to confer on India the blessing of

self-government ...... 238

What has been done to carry out that desire . . 239

Unsatisfactory results thereof ..... 239

Those results foreseen by Sir Henry Maine and other wise

The pretence at representative government in India a fraud . 240

Indian “ Congresses” ...... 242

The Anglicised Hindu ...... 243

The complaint as to the practical exclusion of the natives of

India from the Covenanted Civil Service examined . 245

The large effacement under British rule of the native leaders of

Indian society unquestionably an evil . . . 248

True principle as to the employment of natives of India in the

public service ...... 249

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Chapter XIX Page

Indian music ....... 253

Indian painting ....... 254

Indian architecture ...... 254

Neglect of the magnificent edifices of India by the British

Government . . . . . .256

Architectural performances of the Department of Public Works 258 The life of the Hindu people penetrated by the artistic spirit . 258

Indian artisans ....... 260

The trade guilds of India ...... 263

British machinery and Indian art . . . . . 264

CHAPTER XX Instability of the policy of the Government of India regarding

History of that policy ...... 268

The North-West frontier the recognised road for the invaders of

India for well-nigh three thousand years . . . 270

The advance of Russia towards that frontier . . . 270

The crucial point . . . . . • .271

A grave mistake ....... 273

The eventual re-opening of the Afghan Question . . 273

CHAPTER XXI Indian debt to British enterprise and British capital, in respect of

(a) Irrigation works ...... 274

(<$) Metalled roads and railways .... 280

(c) Mining, manufacturing, and planting industries . . 280

(d) Great cities ....... 282

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These things undoubtedly tokens of prosperity . . . 284

But of whose prosperity? Of the prosperity of the people of India ? The test of a prosperous country is, that the great mass of the inhabitants should be able to procure, with moderate toil, what is necessary for living human lives . 284

But for millions of the Indian peasantry the difficulty is not to live human lives — lives up to the level of their low standard of comfort — but to live at all . 285

Common misconception regarding the riches of India . . 286

Famine in India chronic ...... 286

Causes of the poverty of the population of India . . . 288

Suggested remedies . . . . . .291

The chief errors which have marred British rule in India due

to want of insight ...... 306

APPENDIX A

Proclamation creating a new Frontier Province . . . 31 1

APPENDIX B

Balance-sheet of the Indian Empire, 1899-1900 . . . 313

Part I Physical Characteristics

A

Chapter I

The late Sir Henry Maine thought it not easy to “overrate the ignorance of India which prevails in England on elementary points.” My own experience leads me to think likewise. Two of the most patent facts about India are its vastness and its variety. Yet nothing is more common than to hear from people who are called “educated,” or “ well informed,” such a remark as this : “ Ah ! you have been in India : I wonder whether you met my cousin A. or my friend B. there ! ” The man to whom the question is addressed may be, say, a Madras Civil Servant, or an employe of the Mysore Government ; the friend, or cousin, a soldier doing duty with his regiment on the north-west frontier, or an engineer in the Central Provinces ; and the suggested meeting is as likely as one between a Russian official and a Manchester trader, a German colonel and a barber of Seville. That great triangular space on the world’s map, stretching from the Himalayas to the ocean, which constitutes the Indian Empire — a length of about 1900 miles, which is also its greatest breadth — equals in area and population the whole of Europe except Russia, and is far less homogeneous than Europe, socially, politically, and religiously. “It is a continent rather than a country.” It is inhabited by one-fifth of the human race. It comprises peoples and nations in well-nigh every state of civilisation, from the abject savagery of certain Vindhyan hill tribes, some of whom, only a few years ago, still used flint points for their arrows, to the most complex commercial communities, and the most artificial social organisations. It includes languages, and religions, and jurisprudence of the most diverse kinds. “It presents every variety of climate, from the dry and singularly bracing cold of the' snowy slopes of the Himalaya, to the humid tropical heat of the Concan and of the Coromandel coast. It possesses every variety of scenery from peaks of ice to reefs of coral ; from treeless, burning plains to thick, tangled jungle, and almost impenetrable forests.” Its products include almost everything needed for the service of man. Twelve thousand different kinds of animals are found in it.

How huge a subject our Indian Empire is, may, perhaps, be inferred from the fact that the Statistical Survey of it executed, or rather edited, for the Government by the late Sir William Hunter, extends to 128 volumes, aggregating 60,000 pages. What I propose to do in this little treatise is to put before the general reader such a bird’s-eye view of it as may, at all events, convey to him some correct concep-

THE ORDER OR METHOD tion of its outlines, and may perhaps lead him to refer to more ample sources of information. I shall endeavour to construct my work on the plan which Lord Bacon recommends for the compilation of a book of “ Institutions ” of the Law. “ Principally,” he says, “ it ought to have two properties : the one a perspicuous and clear order or method ; and the other an universal latitude or comprehension, that the student may have a little prenotion of everything.”

And here I will state what my “order or method” is. In Part I. I shall speak of the Physical Characteristics of India. In Part II. I shall give a succinct account of its Races, Languages, and Literature. Part III. will contain a brief summary of its History. Part IV. will deal with its Religions. Part V. will present some principal aspects of the India of To-day, and will discuss a few of the more important problems now confronting us there, the solution of which will vastly influence the India of Tomorrow.

First, then, as to the Physical Characteristics of India, the theme of this Part. India consists of four separate and well-defined regions : the Himalayas in the north ; the Great River Plains, which stretch southwards from their base, and which constitute Hindustan in the proper sense of the word; the three-sided Tableland which slopes upwards again from the River Plains, and which, with the narrow belts of coast between it and the sea, makes up the southern half of India — that vast tract of country known as the Deccan, with the Vindhya Mountains on the north, and on the east and west with the two chains of Ghats running down on either side till they meet in a point near Cape Comorin ; and, lastly, Burmah, consisting of the valley and delta of the Ira wadi, together with the Yoma ranges, a coast strip in the Bay of Bengal, and a wild hill region stretching on the east and south-east of the Ira wadi towards the Chinese and Siamese frontiers.

I have spoken of the Himalayas — and would the reader please notice that such, not Himalayas, is their name — as a division of India. It is just possible that he has been accustomed to regard them as a single mountain range. I myself was brought up so to think of them. They are really a mountainous country extending some fifteen hundred miles in length, and some two hundred in breadth. I speak of the Himalayas proper. But in truth the Hindu Kush may rightly be regarded as merely a continuation of them : and if we take this view, we must hold them to extend from the Equator — by their branches into the Malayan Peninsula — to 45 degrees of North latitude, and over 73 degrees of longitude. Hence the phrase by which the Arabs designate them, “the stony girdle of the earth,” is amply warranted. But, as Mr Andrew Wilson points out in his fascinating book, The Abode of Snow, there is even more meaning

THE ABODE OF SNOW than this, and even more propriety than the Arabs themselves understand, in their phrase, because this great central range can easily be traced from the mountains of Formosa in the China Sea to the Pyrenees, where they sink into the Mediterranean.

We are, however, here concerned only with what are called the Western Himalayas, a series of nearly parallel ranges, lying from south-east to north-west, and enclosed by the Indus, the Brahmaputra, and the great Northern Plain of India, where they terminate abruptly in a precipitous ridge from six to seven thousand feet above the country below. If the reader will refer to the map, he will see that this is “a very simple and intelligible boundary, for the two rivers rise close together in, or in the near neighbourhood of, Lake Manasarowar : in the first part of their course they flow close behind the great ranges of the Himalayas, and they cut through the mountains at points where there is some reason for considering that new ranges commence.”

The word Himalaya is a Sanskrit compound, meaning the Abode of Snow. The Himalayan line of perpetual snow is, of course, much higher than the Alpine. It is, in fact, twice as high : eighteen thousand feet instead of nine thousand. And here it may not be amiss to insert Mr Andrew Wilson’s masterly comparison between the great Asiatic range, which can be known only to few of my readers, and the European mountains which are, doubtless, known to many of them.

“The Himalayas as a whole are not so richly apparelled as the Alps. In Kashmir and some parts of the Sutlej valley, and of the valleys on the Indian Front, they are rich in the most glorious vegetation, and present, in that respect, a more picturesque appearance than any parts of Switzerland can boast of ; but one may travel among the great ranges of the Asiatic mountains for weeks, and even months, through the most sterile scenes, without coming on any of these regions of beauty. There is not here the same close union of beauty and grandeur, loveliness and sublimity, which is everywhere to be found over the Alps. There is a terrible want of level ground and of green meadows enclosed by trees. Except in Kashmir, and about the east of Ladak, there are no lakes. We miss much those Swiss and Italian expanses of deep blue water, in which white towns and villages, snowy peaks and dark mountains are so beautifully mirrored. There is also a great want of perennial waterfalls of great height and beauty, such as the Staubbach ; though in summer, during the heat of the day, the Himalaya, in several places, present long, graceful streaks of dust-foam.

“The striking contrasts and the more wonderful scenes are not crowded together as they are in Switzerland. Both eye and mind are apt to be wearied among the Himalaya by the unbroken repetition of similar scenes during continuous and arduous travel, extending over days and weeks together ; and one sorely misses Goethe’s Eckschen, or the beautiful little corners of nature which satisfy the eye and mind alike. The picture is not sufficiently filled up in its detail, and the continuous repetition of the vast outlines is apt to become oppressive. The very immensity of the Himalaya prevents us from often beholding at a glance, as among the Alps, the wonderful contrast of green meadows, darker pines, green splintered glaciers, dark precipitous cliffs, blue distant hills, white slopes of snow, and glittering icy summits. There are points in the Sutlej valley and in Kashmir where something like this is presented, and in a more overpowering manner than anywhere in Europe ; but months of difficult travel separates these two regions, and their beauty cannot be said to characterise the Himalaya generally. But what, even in Switzerland, would be great mountains, are here dwarfed

IMMENSE HEIGHTS AND DEPTHS into insignificant hills ; and it requires some time for the eye to understand the immense Himalayan heights and depths. Some great rock at the foot of some great precipice, which is pointed out as our camping place for the night, looks at first as if it were only a few hundred feet off, but after hours of arduous ascent, it seems almost as far off as ever.

“ The human element of the Western mountains is greatly wanting in those of the East ; for though here and there a monastery like Ki, or a village like Dankar, may stand out picturesquely on the top of a hill, yet, for the most part, the dingy-coloured, flat-roofed Himalayan hamlets are not easily distinguishable from the rocks amid which they stand. The scattered chalets and sen -huts of Switzerland are wholly wanting, and the European traveller misses the sometimes bright and comely faces of the peasantry of the Alps. I need scarcely say, also, that the more wonderful scenes of the Abode of Snow are far from being easily accessible, even when we are in the heart of the great mountains. And it can hardly be said that the cloudland of the Himalaya is so varied and gorgeous as that of the mountains of Europe, though the sky is of a deeper, more sword-like blue, and the heavens are much more brilliant at night.

“ But when all these admissions in favour of Switzerland are made, the Himalaya still remain unsurpassed, and even unapproached, as regards all the wilder and grander features of mountain scenery. There is nothing in the Alps which can afford even a faint idea of the savage desolation and appalling sublimity of many of the Himalayan scenes. Nowhere, also, have the faces of the mountains been so scarred and riven by the nightly action of frost, and the mid-day floods from melting snow. In almost every valley we see places where whole peaks or sides of great mountains have very recently come shattering down ; and the thoughtful traveller must feel that no power or knowledge he possesses can secure him against such a catastrophe, or prevent his bones being buried, so that there would be little likelihood of their release until the solid earth dissolves : and, though rare, there are sudden passages from these scenes of grandeur and savage desolation to almost tropical luxuriance and more than tropical beauty of organic nature. Such changes are

IO startling and delightful, as in the passage from Dras into the upper Sind Valley of Kashmir, while there is nothing finer in the world of vegetation than the great cedars, pines, and sycamores of many of the lower valleys.”

I may here note that it was from the Himalayas that Sir Joseph Hooker introduced into England half a century ago the beautiful species of rhododendron from which have sprung the various hybrid sorts that in some parts of these islands decorate our gardens and our shrubberies. But in its native home it grows into a great tree, whole forests of which are found throughout the length of the mountains. From them, too, the orchid originally came to us. In return we have given them the potato, which is largely cultivated by the hill tribes, who also raise crops of barley, oats, millet, and various small grains. “ The characteristic animals of the Himalayas include the yak-cow, musk-deer, many kinds of wild sheep and goat, bear, ounce, and fox : the eagle, pheasants of beautiful varieties, partridge, and other birds.”

Such are the Himalayas ; the most extensive of all mountain ranges, and the highest, culminating as they do in the 29,002 feet of Mount Everest, the loftiest measured peak in the world. And though for the most part they are beyond our frontier — the feudatory kingdom of Kashmir, with an area of 80,900 square miles, is the most important state in them subject to the British Raj — they rightly claim the notice they have here received. With the offshoots which at their eastern and western extremities stretch southwards,

A VAST RESERVOIR

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they form a rampart for the Indian Empire against invaders from Asia. They serve it, on this side, “in the office of a wall.” But they also serve as a vast reservoir for Hindustan. I need hardly observe that the great source of the earth’s water supply is the sea, whence vapour is raised by solar heat, and is carried and distributed over the land in snow, rain, and dew. And so long as the sun runs his course, the quantity of vapour thus sucked into the atmosphere will ever be the same. Throughout the summer a vast amount is exhaled from the Indian Ocean. This is gathered into clouds which are carried northward, with amazing rapidity, by the monsoon in the month of June. And such of the moisture as does not descend, in the shape of rain, upon the parched plains, and the lower ranges of the Himalayas, is precipitated in the crystallised form of snowflakes upon the inner heights of those mountains.