modern structure are now in heaps of ruins. They serve but as fleeting monuments to instruct mankind respecting the instability of human grandeur. Such questions, therefore, as whether Palibothra were the modern Allahabad or Patna; or whether the island described under the name of Taprobana be Ceylon or Sumatra, seem of little use in the present age. The discrepancy proves that the ancients had a very confused knowledge of Hindostan; and it must be confessed that its geography is as yet very imperfect. Those parts which have been accurately surveyed are laid down in Arrowsmith's four sheet map tolerably well. But many others are only approximations from the reports made by native observers.

The inhabitants of all those countries known by the names of Baloochistan, Afghanistan, Cabul, &c., which lie westward of the river Indus, may be called with propriety Indo-Persians; and all those who occupy the regions east of the Tiperah wilds, which bound Bengal, under the names of Arracan, Assam, Ava, the Birman Empire, Siam, Pegu, Tunquin, Cambodia, Laos, &c., may with equal correctness be called Indo-Chinese. Northward of the great mountains called the Himalaya range, which are covered with eternal snow, the inhabitants are of the Tartar race; and in the islands of Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, the Sunda Chain, Bornes, Celebes, the Moluccas, the Philippines, &c., which gem the Indian Ocean, the natives are

6

a mixed people, assimilating to the aborigines of the continents near them.

In order to systematise as much as possible this brief geographical description of India, it is intended in the first place to travel round the outline of our sketch.

CHAPTER I.

GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OF INDIA.

LITTLE was known respecting those countries which lie between the river Indus and Persia, till Captain Christie and Mr. Pottinger undertook to travel through Baloochistan, disguised as Mussulman horse-dealers. After a journey of fifteen hundred miles from the mouth of that great river, they joined Sir John Malcolm, at the Persian

court.

In all their course they found Hindoos, and monuments of the Brahmanical institutions but the mass of the inhabitants are Moslems of the same origin perhaps as the Afghans and Sinds, and probably descendants from the Tartars, who, according to Chinese historians, invaded the kingdom of Bactria, so long subject to the successors of Alexander. The Baloochees are governed by petty chiefs; some of whom live by plunder.

The king of Cabul claims their obedience as sovereign; but, owing to the distracted state of that kingdom, every chieftain now acknowledges no power but that of the sword. These chiefs are at eternal war with each other. We accordingly find, that the high feelings generated by feuds prevail among them. Like the Highlanders of Scotland, they are proud, hospitable, and brave; but much addicted to debauch, and depraved in their morals. They swear by their beards, constantly go armed, and resent personal affronts with great spirit.

Baloochistan is by nature a strong rugged country; exceedingly cold in winter, but so intensely hot in summer, that the most burning wind known in the world is generated in it, under the name of Badé Sumoom. Its approaches are indicated to the natives by an unusual closeness of the atmosphere. Its dangerous effects, however, may be shunned by covering the body with even a very thin cloth, and lying prostrate till the fiery fluid passes; but should this precaution not be taken, says Mr. Pottinger," the muscles of the unhappy sufferer become rigid and contracted, the skin shrivels, an agonizing sensation, as if the flesh was on fire, pervades the whole frame, and in the last stage it cracks into deep gashes, producing hemorrhage, that quickly ends this misery." Deserts and barren sands abound; but the fertile parts produce wheat, rice and pulses in abundance,

together with sugar and several drugs for exportation. In traversing some of the wilds, Mr. Pottinger has described distress from thirst with much strength of feeling. "The shrab, or water of the desert," says he, "floated around us, as though it were mocking our distress, by its delusive representation of what we so eagerly thirsted for, the absence of which, I can affirm with perfect confidence, from my individual experience, to be the most insupportable of all the wants of what are termed the absolute necessaries of life. A person may endure, with patience and hope, the pressure of fatigue or hunger, heat or cold, and even a total deprivation of natural rest for a considerable length of time; but to be scorched under a burning sun, to feel your throat so parched and dry that you respire with difficulty, to dread moving your tongue in your mouth from the apprehension of suffocation which it causes, and not to have the means of allaying those dreadful sensations, are, in my ideas, the extreme pitch of a traveller's calamities."

Both banks of the Indus for a considerable way are inhabited by Sinds, under the government of two chiefs called Meers, who, though tributaries to the king of Cabul, now hardly acknowledge any subjection. The Sinds are distinguished from the Baloochees, who wear turbans, gowns, and trowsers, in little but their head-dress, which is a cap something like the crown of our hat fancifully em

broidered round the lower edge. A similar cap is worn by the females; some of whom are very beautiful. At Hyderabad, which is the capital, the artificers are very skilful in working iron and gold; and in many parts of the country there are monuments, which indicate the superior prosperity of the whole at some remote period. The small province of Tatta, now part of this region, is the Delta of the Indus. It is in many parts susceptible of the highest state of cultivation. A great deal of it is now a desert, which in former times was a perfect garden. Near the capital, which is named from the province, there are prodigious numbers of graves and mausoleums; one of which over the tomb of Mirza Eesau is uncommonly magnificent. Tatta is built upon the ruins of the ancient Brahmanabad, which in old times was called Pattala by the Greeks; but there is scarcely a trace now of the 1400 bastions, which Abul Fazel described it to have had.

The river Indus, in a fine course of more than 1350 miles, fertilizes the whole country, and produces the same effects as the Nile. Some of the tributary branches of the Indus are equal to the largest rivers in Europe. The Hydaspes, Hydraotes and Hysudrus are as large as the Rhone. The Hyphases, forty miles longer than the Elbe, and nearly all the inferior branches as noble as the Thames.*

Vide Mr. Elphinstone's account of Cabul.