Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/23

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IN INDIA.
3

panions for horses and camels; beasts of burden as well as stalwart men. Its climate and seasons embrace all varieties, from the tropics to the arctic regions; from the pestiferous Savannahs to the most healthy hills. The face of the country is diversified by the most extensive plains and the loftiest mountains in the world; intersected by the mightiest navigable rivers; with a fertility unknown in temperate countries; where vegetation is never suspended; but a series of crops innumerable double upon one another from one end of the year to another.

2. GOVERNMENT.—The Government of this mighty empire may be classed under two different heads: viz., the home authorities, and those resident in India. Under the former are placed the Board of Control and the Court of Directors; under the latter, the Governor-General of India, the Governors of Bengal, of Madras, of Bombay, of Agra, of the Punjaub, of Oude, and of the Straits of Malacca; each of these delegating his authority, viz., the collection of the revenue and the preservation of the peace, to innumerable commissioners,collectors, judges and magistrates, and downwards through the native grades to the peon or policeman of a village.

3. CIVIL AND MILITAEY ESTABLISHMENTS.—The armies of the three presidencies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay are as distinct as their go-