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THE LAND OF THE VEDA.

dynasty of ancient kings; Punya Dhurma, “The Holy Land,” and also Djam-bhu-dwip, the “Peninsula of the Tree of Life.”

The trade of India is immense. The Imports are cotton cloth, jewelry, watches, stationery, hardware, metals, salt, silk, books, woolens, American ice, bullion, etc., etc.; and the Exports are coffee, tea, raw cotton, (in 1861 to England alone 3,295,000 cwt., producing there $47,500,000,) indigo, opium, ($50,000,000 annually,) saltpeter, jute, seeds, sugar, wool, (23,432,689 lbs. in 1865,) rice, raw silk, ivory, lac, oils, etc. The balance of trade is in favor of India, and the difference has to be paid in cash; so that the specie of England, Germany, and America is drained off to the East, and wealthy India grows richer all the time on a foreign commerce which has now risen to $577,000,000 (gold) per annum. The tonnage is at present 4,268,666 tons, and the revenue $249,646,040, which is only about $1 18 per head—an easier rate of taxation than is levied upon its people by any other civilized Government, while the proportion of the revenue spent on the Administration itself is equally economical. Deduct the annual charges for roads and bridges, police, jails, and courts of justice, education, canals, reservoirs, and irrigation, army, navy, telegraphs, public works, interest on Government securities, and it seems remarkable that the scanty remainder could meet all the charges of the Administration. The Hindoos well know that they were never so well and so cheaply governed as they are now. Their own testimony to this fact will be presented further on. If it were not for the extent to which the cultivated land is almost exclusively made to bear the burden, with its uncertain tenure, (though this is the practice in most Oriental Governments,) and the growth and sale of that vile opium, there would be little now to rebuke in the government of British India. Yet none are more earnest than some of the English themselves for the abolition of this reproach upon their fair fame.

There are seven railroads now running in different parts of the country, with an entire extent of 4,039 miles, and the total traffic receipts of which for the week ending April 22, 1871, was £140,220 11s. 4d., or $701,102, gold. Other lines are in process