406 



INDIA. 



Ship Routes. According to a statement made 

 by Messrs. Duncan Brothers, of Calcutta, the 

 amount of merchandise that is shipped to Eng- 

 land from Calcutta began in 1882 to prepon- 

 derate in favor of the Suez route, as compared 

 with that around the Cape of Good Hope. 



Telegraphs, The number of offices in opera- 

 tion in 1883 was 324, exclusive of those con- 

 nected with the railway service. Length of 

 lines, 21,740 miles; length of wire, 62,830 

 miles, exclusive of 130 miles of cable; number 

 of paid message?, 1,810,906. Keceipts, 545,- 

 315 ; expenses, 625,279. 



Postal Serrice. The following tabular state- 

 ment shows the growing importance of the 

 amount of items of mail matter dispatched : 



The Afghan Frontier, When, in March, 1885, 

 the Afghan frontier question came to be settled 

 between Great Britain and Russia, after the 

 occupation of Merv by the Russians, February, 

 1884, the danger of seeing Herat full into the 

 possession of the Russians caused, both in 

 India and England, the greatest excitement. 

 On March 5, Baron de Staal, the Russian am- 

 bassador, had an interview with Mr. Gladstone 

 and communicated a dispatch from M. de 

 Giers, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 

 in which he denied that the Russian occupa- 

 tion of Akrobat, Sulfikar Pass, and Sariyuz 

 was designed to forestall the decisions of the 

 joint commission on the Russo- Afghan frontier. 

 He said the advance of the Russians from Pul- 

 i-Khatum was only ordered after the Afghans, 

 in July preceding, during the negotiations for 

 the organization of the commission, had occu- 

 pied Penjdeh, and in January had occupied 

 Sariyuz, whence the Afghans withdrew on the 

 advance of the Russians; that M. de Giers did 

 not maintain the right of Russia to hold the 

 disputed outposts, but that he refused to with- 

 draw the Russian troops until the commission 

 presented its report on the frontier question. 



Newspapers. India, in 1884, possessed 230 

 newspapers in the languages of the country. 

 The first paper in a native language appeared 

 in 1808, being founded by missionaries, and 

 occupied entirely with religious matters. These 

 papers have only occupied themselves with 

 political affairs since 1860. Among the names 

 they assume are: the "Mirror of Medicine," 

 the " Noblest of all Papers," the " Ocean of 

 Wisdom," the "Poet's Garland," and the 

 u Water of Indian Life." 



Goats and Famines. According to the " Indi- 

 an Forester," famines in India are caused by 

 goats. The goats of India appear, as a rule, to 

 live always on the brink of starvation, collect- 

 ing a scanty livelihood out of the barrenest 

 materials. They attack the green shoots and 

 topmost twigs of every young tree they come 



across. A herd of goats, numbering 15,000 to 

 20,000, as is sometimes the case in those desert 

 tracts, is not likely to leave much vitality in 

 the saplings in its line of grazing. The old 

 trees, unless re-enforced from time to time by 

 a younger growth, die off, and whole forests 

 thus disappear. Without forests the rainfall 

 ceases, and without rain the crops fail. In 

 spite of the enormous extent of the Indian 

 plains, it is possible that the action of goats is 

 thus indirectly responsible for the droughts. 



Snakes. The enormous annual loss of life in 

 India by snake-bites, amounting to nearly 20,- 

 000 persons, continues in spite of the whole- 

 sale destruction of these venomous creatures. 

 The rewards paid by the Government to snake- 

 destroyers show that there were killed in 1884, 

 throughout India, 322,421, of which 262,384 

 were found in the Bombay Presidency alone. 

 Local authorities are warned to remove from 

 town or village sites, or their vicinity, aloe, 

 cactus, or thorn hedges, ruined houses and 

 walls, and the like, which harbor these rep- 

 tiles. 



Gold. Interest in the India gold properties, 

 which thus far have proved a lamentable fail- 

 ure, has revived in consequence of the success 

 of the Mysore Gold Company. From June 

 to November, both inclusive, this company 

 crushed 622 tons of rock, which yielded 907 

 ounces of gold, the result of stamping 121 tons 

 in November being three ounces a ton. Sev- 

 eral defunct companies in the district were 

 preparing to reorganize, and the prospect to- 

 ward the close of tie year was fair. 



Petroleum. The discoveries of petroleum at 

 Sibi, near Quetta, in the northwest of India, 

 may affect the future of the Russian wells at 

 Baku, on the Caspian Sea, much more than it 

 will American petroleum. It remains to be 

 seen whether the Sibi strata will justify the 

 hopes entertained of them, as they have not 

 been thoroughly tested by boring. But arrange- 

 ments were in contemplation to introduce Cau- 

 casian oil into India by way of the Suez Canal 

 and the Red Sea. 



Tea. It appears from recent statistics that 

 1883 was a favorable year for tea-cultivation 

 in Assam, the prices obtained being better 

 than those of the previous year, and the out- 

 turn being nearly 7,000,000 pounds in excess 

 of the yield of 1882. Many new gardens were 

 opened. The total area of land held by tea- 

 planters in 1883 was 923,664 acres an increase 

 of 140,302 acres over the area of 1882, and of 

 217,015 over the area of 1881. The yield of 

 tea during the year was 52,171,207 pounds, of 

 which the gardens in the Assam valley contrib- 

 uted 34,111,363 pounds, and the gardens in the 

 Surma valley 18,059,844 pounds. The average 

 yield per acre for the whole province was 323 

 pounds, as compared with 292 pounds in 1882. 

 There has been a continuous increase in the 

 production of tea in Assam during the past 

 five years, the yearly quantity having risen 

 from 31,386,636 pounds in 1879 .to 52,171,207 



