half the size of the United States, it contains about four times the number of inhabitants.
6. The Hindus are divided into four classes (called castes)—priests, soldiers, merchants, laborers.
A priest and a laborer may not eat together. The daughter of a merchant is not good enough to marry a priest.
The Hindus are mostly pagans. They worship idols. Juggernaut is one of them. He is an immense block of black stone, with two splendid diamonds for eyes. The Ganges is worshiped almost as if it were a god. It is called the holy river. The people make long and weary pilgrimages up one bank and down the other. They throw themselves into the stream, feeling sure that it will cure their diseases, and wash away their sins.
The Hindus are skilful workmen. They make the famous cashmere shawls, from the wool of the Cashmere goat. Their finest muslin is equal to the best that is made by machinery. It is so delicate that they call it woven wind and evening dew.
Cotton, opium, indigo, sugar, rice, tea, wheat, jute, hides, and tobacco are the chief products.
Threshing wheat with cattle in India.
Rice is the most important article of food. Opium is the dried juice of a kind of poppy. It is much smoked and chewed, especially by the Chinese.
The famous banyan tree grows in India. It curiously sends down shoots from its branches to the ground. These take root and become trunks. A single tree may have many thousand such trunks. There is a banyan tree at Calcutta which covers four acres of ground.
A banyan tree. Notice how the branches have taken root, becoming large trunks.
7. Cities.—Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras are the chief commercial cities of India. Calcutta is the capital.
A street scene in Bombay.
For Recitation.—What are the chief products of Japan? What is said of the Japanese? What are the chief products of Indo-China? What can you say of the population of India? What are the great products of India?
LESSON LIX.
1. Afghanistan and Baluchistan lie to the west of India. They are wild, mountainous countries. Much of the land is desert. The valleys abound in fruit.
The great caravans that go from India to Persia and Turkestan, carrying gums, precious stones and other costly things, have to pass through these countries.
The people are called Afghans and Baluchees. They are very warlike. Many of them are wandering herdsmen, and have large numbers of camels, horses, and sheep. They are Mohammedans.
