The largest, most important, and by far the most yaluable portion of this region was now under the direct administration of the British; the rest was under their sovereign influence. Taking the natural boundaries of India to be the ocean and the mountains, it may be said that the Anglo-Indian Empire now commanded the whole circuit of its sea frontier, that it was securely settled upon a base in the Himalayas, and that its western flank was covered to a great extent by the cis-Indus desert. On two sections, and two only, the frontier was still unstable and liable to disturbance – on the northeast, where the Burmese were advancing into Assam, and on the northwest, where the Sikh kingdom beyond the Sutlaj had acquired formidable fighting strength under Ranjit Singh.
