18 



ever, lost to the country, by those fearful visitations 

 which periodically occur, with terrible severity, in 

 large provinces, and from which India, in some part, 

 is seldom entirely free. 



We have before us a Continent as large as Great 

 Britain, and, Russia excepted, half the rest of Europe 

 besides. Its configuration is peculiar. A stupendous 

 chain of mountains, the highest and most massive in 

 the world, stretches along the entire north and north- 

 eastern frontier ] high table land occupies the centre ; 

 chains of mountains, or ghats, run down the south- 

 eastern and south-western coasts at some distance 

 from the sea. Mighty rivers take their rise in these 

 heights, performing in their course to the sea the 

 double duty of fertilizing and draining the countries 

 through which they pass. But the distribution of 

 these great arteries with their tributary veins, is not 

 equally favourable to the whole country, arid when, 

 as is often the case, a prolonged cessation of rain 

 takes place in any part, the result is one of those 

 frightful calamities with which North Western India 

 has lately been visited. On the other hand, when 

 rain is excessive, floods sometimes occur, which, sub- 

 m erg-ing the country on both sides of the river for 

 thousands of square miles, destroy the crops of the 

 cultivators.* 



The mean quantity of water discharged by one 

 of these rivers, (the Ganges,) into the sea, through- 



* It was a catastrophe of the latter kind which intensified 

 the famine of Orissa of I860. Jan. 1867. 



