BENGAL 



685 



BENGAL 



BENGAL, bengawl', one of the three pres- 

 idencies or large governing units of India, the 

 others being Bombay and Madras. Few other 

 regions in the world are more densely-popu- 

 lated, for Bengal has in its relatively small 

 territory of 78,669 square miles 45,500,000 peo- 

 ple, or 578 to the square mile. If half of the 

 total population of the United States or twelve 

 times the number of people in all Canada were 

 compelled to live within the single state of 

 Nebraska, conditions would be almost exactly 

 the same. Certainly it would not seem pos- 

 sible to the crowded North Americans under 

 such circumstances that they could support 

 themselves by farming, for it is generally con- 

 sidered that wide areas are necessary for that 

 industry, yet Bengal is distinctively agricul- 

 tural. Over half of its area is under cultiva- 



LOCATION MAP 

 Bengal (in black) and the Bay of Bengal. 



tion and as the soil in the Ganges and Brah- 

 maputra valleys is very fertile, large returns 

 are received for labor, even though methods 

 are most primitive. The most important crop 

 is rice, to which almost three-fourths of the 

 cultivated area is given over, and rice is the 

 principal food of the people. The other prod- 

 ucts include wheat, barley and millet, oil seeds, 

 opium, indigo, sugar cane and several varieties 

 of fiber plants. 



Formerly, when Bengal had poor transporta- 

 tion facilities and knew little of machine-made 

 articles from beyond the sea, there were impor- 

 tant native manufactures. In particular, deli- 

 cate cotton and silk fabrics were woven. But 

 to-day cheaper textiles from Great Britain can 

 be brought over the everywhere-present rail- 

 roads or procured from the factories in the 

 larger Bengalese towns, and hand-weaving has 

 largely decreased. 



Geographical Features. Bengal lies at the 

 head of the Bay of Bengal and comprises the 

 choicest land of India. Just as Egypt is in- 

 debted to the Nile for its fertility, so Bengal 

 depends on the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, 

 which spread the silt they bring from their high 

 mountain sources over the plain of which Ben- 

 gal is chiefly composed. Sometimes the Ganges 

 is too generous with its floodings, and in 

 places it is confined within embankments. 



Three lines of railways meet at Calcutta, 

 the capital of Bengal and the largest city of 

 India; and from that center a huge commerce 

 is carried on, largely with the United Kingdom. 



History and Government. Bengal had a long 

 independent existence before it began to be 

 ruled by the Mogul emperors, from which it 

 was wrested in 1757 by the English under 

 Clive. British rule in Bengal was confirmed 

 by Warren Hastings, and the province was 

 early recognized as one of the most valuable 

 parts of India. The name has been applied to 

 widely-varying stretches of territory, and before 

 1905 included far more than it does to-day. 

 The province was so large as to be unwieldy, 

 however, and in that year the eastern part was 

 united with Assam to form a new province of 

 Eastern Bengal and Assam, Discontent re- 

 sulted, for the people felt that the British gov- 

 ernment was trying to discourage any national 

 feeling; and in 1912 a new adjustment was 

 made. Eastern Bengal was reunited with Ben- 

 gal proper, and on the west Bihar, Chota, 

 Nagpur and Orissa were erected into a new 

 province, while Bengal was raised to the rank 

 of a presidency. 



The chief executive of Bengal is a governor, 

 appointed by the government in London, who 

 has as his aids two members of the India 

 Civil Service. The legislative department con- 

 sists of an assembly of fifty-two members. Cal- 

 cutta, once the capital of all India, remains 

 the capital of Bengal, while Darjiling, the 

 "city above the clouds," is the summer resi- 

 dence of the governor. See INDIA. E.D.F. 



BENGAL, BAY OF, the northern portion of 

 the Indian Ocean, lying between India and 

 Burma. It receives the waters of the Ganges, 

 Brahmaputra and Irrawaddy rivers, and on or 

 near its shores are the important towns of 

 Calcutta, Madras and Rangoon. In the east- 

 ern part of the bay are the Andaman Islands, 

 on which a prison colony is maintained by the 

 Indian government. Off the coast of Burma is 

 a chain of islands containing active volcanoes 

 which frequently erupt great quantities of mud, 



