INDIA. THE portion of Asia (named by the ancients, | the Ravi, the Beyah and the Sutlej, and the and followed by the moderns) known as India, is | Jumnah, the Ganges, the Cusi, and the Brahma situated between the 8th and 34th degree of N pootra, and their tributaries. On the W. coast this portion, we may without impropriety, draw the readers attention to the fact, that the tides are only felt seventy-five miles from the sea; the rise is about 9 ft. at full moon, but they flow and ebb with great velocity. The Ganges is looked on by the natives with the most superstitious reverence, believing that dying on its banks is a passport to heaven, and casting a corpse on its bosom will wash away the sins committed in the flesh. For five hundred miles from its mouth it is 30 ft. deep, and never becomes shallow, till its mouth is chocked by sand-bars. At its annual overflow for a hundred miles in extent, nothing is perceived but those objects that have some con siderable elevation on all sides. Two hundred miles from the ocean the Ganges separates in two parts, flowing from E. to S E., and retains its name; but the W. branch is joined by another stream, and is called the Hooghly, on which Calcutta, the capital of the British possessions in India, is situated. Between these two branches the land is intersected by small channels, and is known by the name of Sunderbunds, which is the resort of tigers, serpents, and all kind of wild and venemous animals. It extends about two hundred miles, and is very unhealthy. In July the monsoon rains deluge the country. The river rises 32 ft. above the level, and continues to fall till April, when it is at its lowest point; during the rainy season, the air is more sultry, oppressive and overpowering than the heat in the dry season. Dense clouds obscure the sun, (whose rays seldom penetrate them during its continuance,) which dissolve in a deluge of water. Yet these alone are a blessing to India; its discontinuance would convert it into an African Sahara. Though India is chiefly situated in the torrid zone, it possesses the two extremes of heat and cold. In the Arcars, rains continue for eight months, while in other parts the heat is intense. Bengal is subject to extreme vicissitudes, and is a very unhealthy country. Bombay, which was formerly looked on as the European's grave, is by drainage. tillage, &c., made comparatively healthy. The coast of Coromandel is extremely hot, but the heat is not felt in that oppressive degree as it exists in Malabar, where thick forests through whose trees the sun's rays never penetrate; narrow defiles and noisome swamps constantly generating miasma, make even traveling dangerous in a high degree; while the high lands between the Ganges and the Punjab, though watered with a thousand streams, have a salubrious atmosphere. Between the Indus and Guserat is a vast space of sterile, sandy country, only surpassed by the deserts of Arabia; in some portions resinous and other shrubs abound; but the principal features are low, sandy hills, and when the hot winds arise from the south, such clouds are raised, that the sua is with difficulty seen, breathing is difficult, houses and plantations are overwhelmed, and the cultivated garden becomes a desert. The wastes and mountains that traverse the peninsula are not cultivated; but the bottoms are covered with woods, meadows, rice-fields, and pasture-lands. Among the trees, we may enumerate the teak, prized by ship builders; the banian; all the classes of palms and acacia; cotton wood; sandal, ebony, mulberry, and bamboos, the latter growing to the most prodigious size, and invaluable to the natives for the variety of uses to which it can be applied. Among the alimentary plants, rice is most conspicuous, (a common error exists that this is the principal food, which is by no means the truth, though there are twenty-seven varieties,) wheat, barley, maise, peas, beans, lentils, and the igname; the last weighs several pounds, and supplies the place of potatoes; cucumbers, the brinjael potatoes, sweet and common onions, etc. Among spices, we find ginger, pepper, and cardamans. Sugar-canes, indigeneous pine-apples, and melons, of the most delicious flavor, are common in the provinces. Mangoes, pomegranates, oranges and grapes are very large; also apples, Papanfigs, pillaw, elephant-apples, gourds, plantains, etc. It also raises numerous other plants, as cotton, flax, hemp, opium, sesamum, jalap, sarsaparilla, madder, cassia, tobacco, indigo, etc. Among the floral productions, the rose claims preeminence, which is largely cultivated for the sake of its and an olive skin, from which it is inferred that they belong to the Caucasian race. essence, called attar. In spring and summer, in | unless highly excited; the form of the face oval, the neighborhood of Cashmere, Lucknow, and Ghâsepoor, the air is filled with its odoriferous fragrance. The koonya, a species of white rose, perfumes the vales of Delhi and Serinagur. The nusreen, with its delicate form, whose leaves are white on the outside and yellow within, whose aroma is of the most delicious fragrance, adorns the fertile gardens of Onissa. The large flowering jasmine, with its delicate perfume; the atimutka, and the champaca, adored by the Hindoos for the ornament of the hair, and its exquisite essence; the ixora, with its large scarlet flower, called the burning cials or flame of the wood, ravishes the sight; and the mussanda-frondosa, called the leaf of the princess, or poor man's clock, uncloses its flowers at four in the afternoon and folds them up at four in the morning. So rich are these parterre in floral productions, that the trees appear to stand on a carpet of flowers. Nothing can be more gratifying to the senses than a sojourn in spring in the vales of India. ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE HINDOOS. In the forests and vales of Vendyha mountains, are still to be met tribes differing essentially with the above. In the west of Bengal and Bahar they are called Côls, in the forests of the Vendyha mountains they are named Gonds, westward of that they are called Bheels, and towards Guseral, Coolies; among whom are found some of the handsomest people in Hindostan. In the southern woods of the Deccan they are named Colarees, but the general name is Pariah, who are the detestation and horror of all genuine Hindoos. In the north we find the natives strong and muscular. To the south of Lahore they are generally delicate and weak structure, though they can undergo great fatigue. In the north their stature equals that of south and middle Europe, while in the south it diminishes, and in some parts is dwarfish ; such is the general appearance of the natives of India of the present day. Hindostan is derived from the Sanscrit, Hindoo black, and Stan place. The national tradition of The first question that arises in the mind of a the Hindoos points to the northern part of the historian of a country is, who were the original country as the earliest seat of the race and the inhabitants, which question can scarcely ever be primeval abode of their religion and social instisatisfactorily settled; and with respect to India tutions; and from the similarity of the Sanscrit we are left entirely in the dark, gleaning our with the Persian, Greek, and Latin, and the Gerscanty information from the Greeks and vague man, Lettic and Sclavonic dialects, they must, at tradition of the Brahmins. The Hindoos consti- some distant period, have been a part of a large tute the great mass of the population of India: family, whence they emigrated on different occatheir features and persons seem to mark them out sions. Schlegel's theory is, that the common as a peculiar race. Their hair long, of a deep abode was the east of the Caspian Sea. The anblack, but not coarse like the Indians of America; cestors of the Persians emigrated in a south-westthe nose and lip resemble the European; the eye-ern, the Hindoo in a south-eastern, the European brows full; the eye with a tinge of yellow in the in a northern-western direction. The tribe that white of it; the iris black, with little animation emigrated to India must have crossed the Indus |