hough it does not vie with the great rivers of
America, is 1,557 miles in length. To the natives it is a sacred river, and
the land through which it flows is holy ground. To bathe in its waters
washes away sin; to die and be buried on its shores procures a free
admission to the eternal paradise of heaven.

"The Ganges Canal, constructed in 1854, is 445 miles long, and is used for
both navigation and irrigation. Doubtless you will sail upon it, and learn
more about it. Near the Indus are two deserts, one 500 miles long, and the
other 400, though the grains may be cultivated in the valleys and other low
places; and perhaps these regions will be reclaimed by artificial
irrigation. In ancient times gold-mines were worked in the south-west, and
the currency consisted of this metal instead of silver, as at the present
time; but the veins were exhausted, and the Mysore mines are all that is
left of them.

"I suppose you Americans have been accustomed to regard India as an
exceedingly hot country; and this is quite true of a considerable portion
of it. In a region extending from the almost tropical island of Ceylon,
nearly 2,000 miles to the snow-capped summits of the highest mountains in
the world, there must necessarily be a great variety of climate. India has
three well-defined seasons,--the cool, the hot, and the rainy. The cool
months are November, December, January, and a part of February.

"The rainy season comes in the middle of the summer, earlier or later, and
ends in September. Winter is the pleasantest season of the year; but
autumn, unlike England, is hot, moist, and unhealthy. Monsoon comes from an
Arabian or Persian word, meaning a season; and you have learned something
about it by this time. It is applied to the south-west winds of the Indian
Ocean, changing to the north or north-east in the winter. This wind
produces rain, and when they infrequently fail, portions of the country are
subjected to famines.

"At an elevation of 7,200 feet the temperature is an average of 58 deg.
Fahrenheit, as I shall give all readings of the thermometer. At Madras, on
the south-east coast, it is 83 deg.; at Bombay, 84 deg.; Calcutta, 79 deg.; and in
Delhi, in latitude 29 deg. (about the same as the northern part of Florida), it
is 72 deg.. These annual average temperatures will not seem high to you; but I
beg you not to form a wrong impression, for the heat of summer is generally
oppressive, and the average temperature is consi