PHYSICAL CONFIGURATION OF THE COUNTRY. 91 



The river system of India next claims attention. It is a 

 curious fact that India receives the drainage of both slopes 

 of the Himalayas. At the back of that mountain chain, three 

 rivers take their rise in close proximity to each other ; one, 

 the Sutlej, immediately breaks through the Himalayan chain 

 and descends into the Punjab ; the two others run parallel to 

 the Himalayas, the one in a north-westerly and the other in 

 an easterly direction. The former breaks, after some time, 

 through the Himalayas and emerges into the Punjab 

 plain as the Piiver Indus, finding its way, through Sind, 

 into the Arabian Sea. The latter of the two rivers, after 

 running for hundreds of miles to the north of the 

 Himalayas, also breaks through that mountain chain and 

 appears in Upper Assam as the Bramaputra ; it then 

 proceeds down the Assam valley, through Lower Bengal 

 and joins tiie Ganges shortly before reaching the Bay of 

 Bengal. 



The southern face of the Himalayas is drained, in its 

 western part, by the five Punjab rivers which join the Indus. 

 East of Simla the Jumna and Ganges, which join at Alla- 

 habad, emerge from the hills, and the Ganges takes in a series 

 of streams which drain the southern slopes of the range from 

 the United Provinces to Sikkim. To the east of this point 

 the drainage goes into the Bramaputra. The drainage of 

 the Peninsula is arranged in the following manner : — 

 The Ganges receives the drainage of the northern edge. 

 Next, two rivers, the Narbada and Tapti, run in close 

 proximity in a western direction into the Arabian Sea, 

 but by far the greater portion of the plateau sends its 

 water in an eastern direction into the Bay of Bengal, because 

 the highest part of the Peninsula is close to the sea on 

 the west. 



The three principal rivers in Burma are the Irawadi, the 

 Sittang and the Salween. They run from north to south, 

 but the Salween takes also in a large feeder which comes 

 from the south-east. 



