490. The Ganges Valley.—It takes two days to go north by train from Hyderabad in the central highlands down to the flat plain of the Ganges River. This is a wide delta plain like that of the Mississippi. (Sec. 161.) The many branches of the Ganges have washed enough dirt down from the high Himalaya Mountains to build up a wide, level, rich plain, where people live as thickly as people can live together. The land fairly swarms with dark-skinned people, who are not quite as large as are the people of the United States, nor as black as are the people of southern India.
There is no forest here. The level plain is full of villages, gardens, fruit trees, and fields of rice, sugar cane, corn, millet, beans, and vegetables. Summer is damp and hot. We see black children; naked and with heads shaved to keep them cool. Sometimes there is one wearing a tiger's claw on a string around his neck for good luck. Often the people of India have silver nose rings, earrings, necklaces, and anklets, for they are very fond of jewelry and orna ments. Sometimes, on holidays, the chil dren are dressed up in very pretty clothes.
As we pass by the houses we sometimes see people eating rice and beans with their, fingers. But in spite of eating with their fingers, the people are very clean. In fact, it seems that they are always bathing. We pass a school where an old man is sitting on the floor with some boys around him, studying their lessons aloud. Each boy has a writing board on which he writes by dipping a sharp stick into chalk solu tion. This rubs off easily, when dry. The children of India are solemn little people. They do not shout and play as much as we do.
Finally we enter Benares, the sacred city of India, beside the Ganges River. There are many beautiful temples by the river side, for the people of India have built some of the most beautiful buildings in the world. To our surprise, we see hundreds of little girls standing on the river bank, throwing their dolls into the water of the Ganges, the sacred river. Then we learn that this is the religious Festival of Dassi wah, when all the children must part with some of their toys. On the tenth day of this festival, the little boys throw into the river all of their earthenware animals. Neither boys nor girls will have any more for three or four months. And the next year at the same Festival of Dassiwah, they must throw some more earthenware playthings into the Ganges as a religious sacrifice to their gods.
491. The Indus Valley.—The Ganges Valley has much rain, but the valley of the lower Indus River is so dry that much of it is a desert. It is like Egypt in having a river that brings water to it from a distant land of rain. The many branches of the Indus River rise in the Himalaya Moun tains, where there are heavy rains, and even snow on the high tops. The water runs down the mountain sides and makes big rivers that flow out into the desert. Here the English have helped the natives to repair old irrigation canals and to build new ones, so that many millions of people can live on this irrigated land.
You see that India has many kinds of country,—desert lands and wet lands, low lands and high lands, and even snowy mountains standing above the hot land.
492. Climate.—Most of India is in the hot or torrid zone and the rest of it, except the Himalaya Mountains, is a land with out frost. In the summer a warm south wind blows from June until September or October. This wind, called a monsoon, coming from the Indian Ocean brings mois ture and heavy rain in the warm summer season. So much heat and moisture make plants grow rapidly, but when the monsoon fails, as it sometimes does, it is a terrible thing, as we shall see when we read about the famines. (Sec. 495.) 493. People and government.—Asia is so large that its countries must be shown small on the map. We are therefore sur prised to learn that India is nearly two thirds as large as the United States, and still more surprised to find that it has more people than all North America and South America together, besides Australia and all the islands of all the seas. We must not think of India as being all one kind of country, or as having only one kind of people. It has as many kinds of people as are found in Europe. They are of all shades of color; from inky black in the south, to almost white in the northern hills near Afghanistan. Thirty-three different languages are spoken in India.
India is a part of the British Empire. The King of England is Emperor of India. Some of the states of India have their native kings, but England has control even over these native states. Other parts of India are ruled entirely by the English. For many years Calcutta was the capital of British India, but in 1911, the capital was moved back to its ancient place at Delhi.