Many of the people of India were highly civilized long before the people of North Europe were. As workers, they have amazing skill, and make wonderful carvings of wood, metal, and ivory, and many other beautiful things. Their country still contains some of the most gorgeous and beautiful buildings in the world. (Fig. 505.) 690. Government.—Just as Europe has many small countries, such as Switzerland and Holland, so India has many kingdoms and empires. Thirty languages are spoken. Since 1774 England has ruled over India, and has kept the native states from fighting each other. Many of the native states still keep their own rulers, just as each of our own states has a governor; but the King of England sends out a governor-general, or viceroy. This gov ernor-general and his council really rule India, for the native princes must obey them. But the native princes attend to local govern ment, and make much show with palaces and processions, jewelry and bright clothing.
Since England began to keep order in India, many railroads have been built, and the country has some factories and a heavy foreign trade.
691. India has four natural divisionsi: First, the slopes of the Himalayas; Second, the moist plains of the lower Ganges and Brahmaputra; Third, the drier plains of the Indus Region; Fourth, the plateau of Hindustan, and the island of Ceylon.
692. The Himalaya slopes.—The Himalaya slopes, too small to show on the map, have all kinds of climate, from stifling tropic heat at the base, to glaciers and unending snow at the top. These slopes have a terrific rainfall. As the moist monsoon from the Bay of Bengal goes up the steep slopes, th e water fairly pours out of the clouds.
Forty inches of rain have been known to fall at one place in a single day, and 900 inches in a single year; the average for some districts is over 400 inches a year. In some places the mountain is just bare rock, because all the soil has been washed down into the Ganges plain. Like the Great Valley of California, the Ganges plain is made up of soft earth thus washed down by the moun tain streams.
693. The Ganges and Brahmaputra val monsoon seems to swing around the plateau of Hindustan and up the valley of the Ganges, makihg it, too, a land of heavy rain (Fig. 509), but not so heavy as the rain of the Himalaya slopes. The lower Ganges valley is called Bengal. Millions of dark-skinned farming people make their living on this plain as the people do on the plains of China. Two crops suited to wet land are the leaders here: rice to eat, and jute to sell. The rice is grown as it is in China and Japan (Secs. 654,
672). Jute is a tall, reed-like plant which has in its stalk the cheapest of all important fibers. It is made into burlaps and gunny sacks, the coarse sacks and bags which are much used throughout the world to hold grain and coarse materials. In Calcutta, the great city of the Ganges delta, many factories are making burlap, and many ships go down the Hoogli River (Fig. 527) carrying bales of burlap and bales of raw jute to every continent. The lowlands of the Brahmaputra, in a section called Assam, are much like those of the Ganges.
On the higher lands of Assam, English companies have developed many large tea plantations with the aid of native workers.
694. The Indus northwestern India, a part of which is called the Punjab, the plain between the Himalayas and the sea is much wider than the plain in Bengal.
The Indus plain is level, wide, and hot. The monsoon does not blow here as strongly as it does farther east, and it makes but little rain until it reaches the Himalayas. (Fig. 473.) The wide, almost rainless stretch east of the Indus is called the Thar, or Indian desert, but streams flow down from the deluged mountains and form the Indus, which flows through a land of little rain.
Instead of the rice and jute of the lower Ganges valley, the Indus ,region produces wheat and barley. These crops grow between November and March, but the scanty, irregu lar rainfall makes the crop uncertain. In good seasons, the fields of the upper Indus produce wheat for export from the wheat port of Karachi.
For thousands of years people have irri gated land in the Indus valley. Hundreds of thousands of farmers are working year in and year out, irrigating their little bits of land from wells, as they do in the M'zab. (Sec. 579.) Under the English govern ment, large, ancient irriga tion works along the rivers have been rebuilt, new ones have been made, and still others are planned.
695. The plateau of Hin dustan makes up most of the peninsula. It is deluged with rain where the monsoon strikes the Ghats Mountains on the southwest coast. (Fig. 473.) Farther inland it is dryer, and the plain is covered with grass. Here the farmers grow the drought-resisting crops of sorghum and millet. These grains (Sec. 108) have tall stalks and small, round seeds. They are grown on millions of acres of ground, for they are the main food of millions of men and millions of cattle. This partially dry region furnishes a large partof the world 'ssupply of goat skins, many of which go to the American tanneries and shoe factories.