CHAPTER VI.
BENGAL BEFORE THE PARTITION.
It is a far cry in every sense from the Deccan to Bengal.

There is a greater diversity of races, languages, social customs, physical conditions, &c., between the different provinces of India than is often to be found between the different countries of Europe.

Few differ more widely than the Deccan and Bengal--the Deccan, a great table-land raised on an average over 2,000ft.

above sea level, broken by many deep-cut river valleys and throwing up lofty ridges of bare rock, entirely dependent for its rainfall upon the south-west monsoon, which alone and in varying degrees of abundancy relieves the thirst of a thin soil parched during the rest of the year by a fierce dry heat--Bengal, a vast alluvial plain, with a hot, damp climate, watered and fertilized by great rivers like the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, which drain the greater part of the Himalayas.

The Deccan is thinly populated; it has no great waterways; there are few large cities and few natural facilities of communication between them, but the population, chiefly Mahratta Hindus, with a fair sprinkling of Mahomedans, survivors of the Moghul Empire, are a virile race, wiry rather than sturdy, with tenacious customs and traditions and a language--Marathi--which has a copious popular literature.