I 



TKAXSACIIONS Of THE SJiCTlOXS. 165 



the_ palace of the Sass.anian kings at Ctesiphon in Babylonia — avails and timber 

 dating alike from the fifth or sixth century of our era — are still undecayed ! And 

 yet myriads of logs of this precious material have been used up and buried in the 

 ground as railway-sleepers — a position in ^Yhich decay was sure to anive in a very 

 few years—when a very little thought and trouble would have provided an endu- 

 ring substitute of iron. I believe that had a Forest Department been in earlier 

 existence, much of this misapplication of valuable material might have been 

 avoided, or at least the misapplication would not have been at India's cost. Nor 

 is such waste of resources the only evil that forest-conservancy has to guard against. 

 The unregulated denudation of extensive tracts has a marked influence on the rain- 

 fall ; and it is one of the duties of a forest-consei-vancy to see that the sometimes 

 furious demands of the market for timber or fuel do not lead to such general and 

 imregulated denudation. 



The geographical held on which, with your permission, I propose to expatiate 

 for a little, is that of India beyond the Ganges ; I mean in the largest sense of the 

 expression, and inclusive, at least in some points of view, of the Indian Islands. 

 India, indeed, in old times, was a somewhat vague term, or at least it had always a 

 vague as well as an exacter interpretation. In the latter, it had the same applica- 

 tion that we give it now when we speak with precision ; it meant that vast 

 semipeninsidar region roughly Umited by the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges, 

 which embraces many nations and many tongues and many climates, but yet aU 

 pervaded by a certain almost intangible character which gives it a kind of unity 

 recognized by aU. In its vaguer sense, India meant simply the Far East. The 

 traces of such use still survive in such expressions as the East Indies or the Indian 

 Archipelago. Though this vague and large application of the name probably arose 

 only from the vagueness of knowledge, it coincides roughly with a fact ; and that is 

 the extraordinary expansion of Hindoo influence, which can be traced in the vestiges 

 of religion, manners, architecture, language, and nomenclature over nearly all the 

 regions of the East to which the name has been applied. Another name has been 

 applied to the continental part of this region, Indo-China. This, too, expresses the 

 fact that on this area the influence of India and of China have interpenetrated. 

 But the influence of China has, except on the eastern coast, been entirely political, 

 and has not, like that of India, affected manners, art, and religion. 



The great elevation that we call the Ilimalya, after passing beyond the utmost 

 eastern limits of the British province of Asam, is continued in a vast mass of 

 compressed and rugged mountains, of whose lines we have no exact knowledge, 

 but which we know still to reach, at points within the bounds of China Proper, a 

 height of 15,000 feet. In Yunnan these drop into a great plateau, standing at an 

 average height of some 6000 feet above the sea, on which are planted the chief cities 

 of that province, whilst branches of mountain-chains extend far to the south and 

 cast, reaching the sea or its vicinity at Cape Negrais, at Martaban^ in the south- 

 east of Cochin China, and in Fokien. 



Looking at the Map of Central and Southern Asia, we see what a barrier the 

 Ilimalya forms to the drainage of the plateau of Tibet. The Indus and the Sanpu, 

 having their sources within that plateau, and at a very short distance from each 

 other, flow respectively westward and eastward within this banier till they reach 

 an extreme distance from one another, of about 26° of longitude, before the}' turn 

 southward and escape into the plains of India. 



But eastward from the exit of the Sanpu, the'mountain-banier is forced, within 

 3° of longitude, by at least six great rivers, counting in that number the Sanpu or 

 Dihong. These sLx rivers, the Dihong, the Dibong, the Lohit, the Ln-Kiang or 

 Salwen, the Lantsang or great Camboja river, and the Kinsha or upper stream of 

 the Yangtse, all derive their origin (I believe the fact is beyond reasonable doubt) 

 from far within the Tibetan plateau. 



Another gi-eat river, the Irawadi, comes certainly from the vicinity of Tibet ; 

 but whether it derives any considerable stream from within that region is a point 

 still undecided. The question excited much controversy some forty-five years 

 ago, when Klaproth made a desperate attempt to prove that the waters of the 

 Sanpu, instead of flowing into Asam, were really the head-waters of the Irawadi. 

 The doctrine was backed on Ivlaprotla's part by much Chinese learning, as well as 



