It is now almost generally absorbed in the name of India, and the
application of the term to the whole of the peninsula is entirely
erroneous; and English authorities usually pronounce it so.
"The name India is now given to the peninsula lying to the eastward of the
Bay of Bengal. Siam and Tongking are in native possession, or under the
protection of France, while Burma is a part of the British Indian Empire.
It was only last year that the French had a brush with Siam, and materially
strengthened their position there; and it will not be a calamity when all
these half-civilized nations are subjected to the progressive influences
which prevail in India proper, in spite of all that is said about the greed
for power on the part of the great nations of the world.
"But I am wandering from my subject. India is about 1,900 miles in extent
from north to south, and 1,600 in breadth in latitude 25 deg. north. The
boundaries of this vast country, established by nature for the most part,
are the Bay of Bengal (now called a sea in the southern portion) on the
south-east, and the Arabian Sea on the south-west. On the north the
Himalaya Mountains separate it from China, Thibet, and Turkestan; but some
of these countries are called by various names, as Chinese Tartary,
Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan, and so on. On the west are Beloochistan and
Afghanistan, and on the east Siam and China, though the boundaries were
somewhat disturbed last summer in the former.
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