Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chapter{Section 4chapter{Section 5chapter{Section 6chapter{Section 7chapter{Section 8chapter{Section 9chapter{Section 10chapter{Section 11chapter{Section 12chapter{Section 13chapter{Section 14chapter{Section 15chapter{Section 16LECTUEES ON INDIA. LECTURE I. It is the opinion of some eminent geographers, that India, under the name of Tarshish, was known in the days of Solomon, and celebrated as the land of spices, gold, and precious stones; but, whelher it be the Tarshish of the ancients or not, it has for a long time been justly regarded with great interest. Here, vast and powerful empires have successively sprung up and flourished, while Europe was in a state of barbarism. Long before Christianity shed its light upon the world, India was the land of science and the arts. At the present time, however, its prominent characteristics are ignorance, poverty, and superstition. It is not my purpose to direct your attention to the whole,of India, but only to that portion of it usually denominated Hindustan, or India within the Ganges. This is a large peninsula, projecting into the Indian Ocean, south-west of the Chinese Empire, from which it is separated by the Himalaya Mountains. With a territory about as large as Mexico, it is supposed to contain a population of one hundred and thirty millions, or more inhabitants than England, Scotland, Ireland, Russia, and the continent of America. The Hindus are of various dissimilar races, differing materially in stature, complexion, manners, language, and general character The Rajpoots and mountaineers of the north are large and of great muscular strength, while the inhabitants farther south are generally of small stature and of slender form. In complexion, they vary from a dark olive approaching to black, to a light, transparent, beau...