Page:The Story of India (1897).djvu/11



story of India is that of a land quite different from any other in the British Empire. Its population of three hundred millions is immensely larger than any that a European power has undertaken to rule elsewhere, and it confronts us with problems more stubborn than any we have to solve in America, Australasia, or even Africa. It cannot compete with Canada or Australia in actual size of territory; still, it is thirty times as large as England, and larger than the continent of Europe without Russia. Its general outline on the map is familiar enough, a great triangle pointing southward into the Indian Ocean, and northward a huge dome-shaped mass rising high into Central Asia. Every variety of climate is to be found in India; for her million and a half of square miles include every height of land, from the level of the sea to the tallest mountain peaks on the surface of the globe. There is plenty of variety among the people, too. Those of the north-west and