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 — BENGAL. the north far its

271

Himalayas, and skirting round their passes

of the

not

from the Yang-tse-Kiang and the great river of Cambodia, ends The valleys of the Ganges tortuous journey of 1800 miles.

and Brahmaputra

for the most part luxuriant by spurs and peaks thrown out from the great mountain systems which wall them in on the north-east and south-west. This fertile region of hill and river produces tea, indigo, turmeric, the opium poppy, innumerable grains and pulses, pepper, ginger, betel-nut, the cinchona which yields quinine, many costly spices and drugs, oil-seeds of various kinds, cotton, the silk mulberry, inexhaustible crops of jute and other fibres timber, from the feathery bamboo and coronetted palm to the iron-hearted sd^ tree in short, every vegetable product which feeds and clothes a people, and enables it in

Bengal, although

alluvial plains, are diversified



to trade with foreign nations.

The

wealth.

Nor

is

—

the country destitute of mineral

Districts near the sea consist entirely of alluvial forma-

tions; and, indeed,

it

is

stated that

no substance so coarse as gravel

occurs throughout the Delta, or in the heart of the Provinces within

300 miles of the river mouths. But amid the hilly spurs and undulations on either side, coal, and iron, and copper ores, hold out a new future to Bengal, as capital increases under the influence of a stable Government, and our knowledge of the country becomes more exact. The coalfields on the west have for a century been worked by English enterprise, and now yield between half a million and a million tons per annum. In the east, the coal-measures of Assam, which Province was separated from Bengal in 1874, await the general development of the country and improved facilities of transport. A railway has lately (1884) been opened to the most important of the Assam coal-fields. The climate varies from the snowy regions of the Himalayas to the tropical vapourbath of the Delta and the burning winds of Behar. of the thermometer on the plains

month

well-built



ordinary range

shade in

and by care

in the hot weather, the temperature of

to ro3° in the

sidered very cold

The

from about 52° F. in the coldest summer. Anything below 60° is con-

houses rarely exceeds 95°.

is

The

rainfall also varies greatly

from 500 to 600 inches per annum at Chara Punji (Cherra Poonjee), Assam, to an average of about 37 inches in Behar, and about 65 inches Further meteorological details will be found on pp. 32r-2. The Rivers The most distinctive feature of Bengal is its rivers. These untaxed highways bring down, almost by the motive power of their own currents, the crops of Northern India to the seaboard an annual harvest of wealth to the trading classes, for which the population of the Lower Provinces neither toil nor spin. Lower Bengal, indeed, exhibits the two typical stages in the life of a great river. In the northern in the Delta.

.

—

—

Districts, the rivers run along the valleys, receive the drainage from the country on either side, absorb broad tributaries, and rush forward with