Show INDIAS INFINITE VARIETY her society and lier her scenery complex a and d varied to a degree the grand difficulty of talking to an englishman about india is that he always forms a picture of the place in his mind it may be accurate or inaccurate but it is always a picture ile he thinks of it either as a green delta or a series series of sunbaked plains oi or a wild region with jungle and river and farms all intermixed or a vast park stretched out by nature for sportsmen and sloping ing somehow at the edges toward highly cultivated plains says the london spectator it never occurs to him that I 1 as re regards 9 ards external aspect ahe re ta no india that atiat t the peninsula Ten so called is as large larg ge as europe west vest of the vistula and presents as many variations of scenery east an anglia a is not so different from italy as the northwest provinces from bengal nor are the landes so unlike normandy Norman dy is as the punjab is unlike the huri hunting ting districts of madras there is every scene in india from the eternal snow of the Ilima layes as much above mount blanc as mount blanc is above geneva to the rice swamps of bengal all buried in fruit trees from the wonderful valleys of the Vind hya where beauty and fertility seem to struggle consciously for the favor of man to the god forgotten salt marshes by the runn of cutch it is the same with ith indigenous indian society ty the englishman thinks of it as an innumerable crowd of timid pea peasants easily taxed and governed by a few officials or as a population full of luxurious princes with difficulty restrained by scientific force and careful division from eating up each other in reality i indian society is more complex and varied aried v than in europe comprising it is true a huge mass of peasant proprietors vt prie tors ors but yet full of princes who are potentates and princes who are survivals of landlords who are in all respects great nobles and landlords who are only squi reens of great ecclesiastics and hungry curates ccrates cu rates of merchants like the and merchants merchant S who keep beep shops or professors and professionals fessio nals of adventurers and criminals of cities full of artificers artifice rs and of savages far below the dark citizens of hawaii |