Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/35



a superficial view of the physical features of India cannot fail to show that there is hardly any part of the world better marked out by nature as a region by itself than India. It is a region, indeed, full of contrasts in physical features and climate, but the features that divide and isolate it as a whole from surrounding regions are too clear to be overlooked. In truth, the whole of India, in spite of assertions to the contrary made by some geographers, is easily perceived to be a single country endowed with a sharply defined individuality, and beneath her truly manifold and bewildering variety there is a fundamental geographical unity, a complete territorial synthesis.

Mountain-guarded and sea-girt as she is on the north and the south, India looks as if she had been meant by nature to remain aloof from the rest of the world and to develop her civilization in isolation, untouched by the currents that stir humanity abroad. And yet there is hardly any country in the world