to the limits of Western Yunnan. From the base of the triangle to the apex at Cape Comorin the length may be taken at 2,000 miles; and the greatest breadth, from the western boundary of British Beluchistan to the eastern limit of the British Shan States, lying on the Mekong, is not less than 2,500 miles. Then there is a land frontier of some 6,000 miles on the west and north, marching with Persia and Russia, for we have made ourselves responsible for the Afghanistan frontier; on the east with China, with France, and with Siam. A seaboard of close on 4,000 miles has to be guarded by the navy of Great Britain—a seaboard boasting many great ports, of which Calcutta, Bombay, Rangoon, Madras, and Karachi alone are worth a nation's ransom, and represent many millions, not only of British, but of European capital. Such is the Great British Dominion in India—an object of envy and admiration to foreign nations, viewed with indifference and neglect by our own people. The great majority of the nation, by whose voice Great Britain is ruled and her destinies swayed, know little and care less about their Indian Dependency. As to the means by which this Empire has been won, there may be still some foreign politicians who believe in deep-laid schemes of colonial expansion, worked out by a succession of British Governments for the past three centuries. Here, in England, the popular idea would probably be found in the opposite direction. The result would be attributed to a series of fortunate chances and inexplicable accidents. There is some justification for both views. Until a long time after our power was established beyond dispute there was no settled plan of expansion in the minds either of the leading men in India or of the statesmen at home. They drifted on the currents which direct human affairs, and the great influences at work in the world, the predisposing conditions and favouring impulses, led them into port.
British power in India had its beginning in 1588, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth—a reign which laid the
