Bengal Sentence Examples

The rivalry between the English and the French, which had already convulsed the south, did not penetrate to Bengal.

In 1766 he was called upon to give evidence before a committee of the House of Commons upon the affairs of Bengal.

As an independent measure of economy, the stipend paid to the titular nawab of Bengal, who was then a minor, was reduced by one-half - to sixteen lakhs a year (say 160,000).

Bengal has no Cycas, oaks or nutmegs.

The Mahrattas at this time had got possession of the person of the Mogul emperor, Shah Alam, from whom Clive obtained the grant of Bengal in 1765, and to whom he assigned in return the districts of Allahabad and Kora and a tribute of 30o,000.

After not a little hesitation, Hastings consented to allow the Company's troops to be used to further the ambitious designs of his Oudh ally, in consideration of a sum of money which relieved the ever-pressing wants of the Bengal treasury.

The Regulating Act, passed by Lord North's ministry in 1773, effected considerable changes in the constitution of the Bengal government.

Colonel Goddard with a Bengal army marched across the breadth of the peninsula from the valley of the Ganges to the western sea, and achieved almost without a blow the conquest of Gujarat.

The Bhonsla Mahratta raja of Nagpur, whose dominions bordered on Bengal, was won over by the diplomacy of an emissary of Hastings.

The supreme court, whether rightly or wrongly, assumed a jurisdiction of first instance over the entire province of Bengal.

He was the first to attempt to open a trade route with Tibet, and to organize a survey of Bengal and of the eastern seas.

It consists of, first, a strip of mainland along the Bay of Bengal, extending from the An pass, across the main range, to the Ma-i River, and, secondly, the large islands of Ramree and Cheduba, with many others to the south, lying off the coast of Sandoway.

As a member of the council of Madras he helped to defend the city against the French in 1759, and in July 1760 he went to Bengal as president of the council and governor of Fort William.

In Dec. 1920 he went to India as the representative of King George in order to inaugurate the provincial legislative councils of Madras, Bengal, and Bombay, arriving at Madras Jan.

Berhampur was fixed upon after the battle of Plassey as the site of the chief military station for Bengal; and a huge square of brick barracks was erected in 1767, at a cost of 30o,000.

In 1788-1789 the government of Bengal sought to establish in the Andamans a penal colony, associated with a harbour of refuge.

Two able officers, Colebrooke of the Bengal Engineers, and Blair of the sea service, were sent to survey and report.

All these countries are well watered, populous and fertile, with a climate very similar to that of eastern Bengal.

The great plain extends, with an almost unbroken surface, from the most western to the most eastern extremity of British India, and is composed of deposits so finely comminuted, that it is no exaggeration to say that it is possible to go from the Bay of Bengal up the Ganges, through the Punjab, and down the Indus again to the sea, over a distance of 2000 m.

Of the islands in the Bay of Bengal the Nicobar and Andaman groups are alone worth notice.

The Polynemidae, which range from the Atlantic through the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, supply animals from which isinglass is prepared; one of them, the mango-fish, esteemed a great delicacy, inhabits the seas from the Bay of Bengal to Siam.

The Sciaenidae extend from the Bay of Bengal to China, but are not known to the westward.

No historical record has been preserved of these latter, but they appear to have profoundly affected the population of Bengal, which is believed to be MongoloDravidian in composition.

Thus Raghoji Bhonsla established himself in the tracts lying underneath the southern base of the Satpura range (namely, Nagpur and Berar), overran Orissa and entered Bengal.

It was at this conjuncture that Warren Hastings displayed his political genius and rendered signal service to his country, by succouring from Bengal the defeated Bombay army and negotiating a peace (in 1782) that restored the status quo.

Its line to some extent may be partly made out - very clearly, for the matter of that, so far as its details have been published in the series of papers to which reference has been given - and some traces of its features are probably preserved in his Catalogue of the specimens of birds in the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, which, after several years of severe labour, made its appearance at Calcutta in 1849; but, from the time of his arrival in India, the onerous duties imposed upon Blyth, together with the want of sufficient books of reference, seem to have hindered him from seriously continuing his former researches, which, interrupted as they were, and born out of due time, had no appreciable effect on the views of systematisers generally.

Their political power perhaps continued in the Gurjara empire, which at one time extended to Bengal in the east and the Nerbudda in the south, and continued in a diminished form until A.D.

Gobius alcocki, from brackish and fresh waters of Lower Bengal, is one of the very smallest of fishes, not measuring over 16 millimetres (= 7 lines).

Of the old fort erected by Islam Khan, who in 1608 was appointed nawab of Bengal, and removed his capital from Rajmahal to Dacca, no vestige remains; but the jail is built on a portion of its site.

The district is traversed by a line of the Eastern Bengal railway, but most of the traffic is still conducted by water.

As a contrast to the Ahmedabad mosques, the Kadam Rasul mosque at Gaur in Bengal possesses some characteristics which resemble those of the mosque of Tulun in Cairo, possibly due to the fact that it is entirely built in brick, with massive piers carrying pointed arches.

In October 1905 most of Sambalpur and five Oriya-speaking hill-states were transferred from the Central Provinces to Bengal, while the Hindi-speaking states of Chota Nagpur were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces.

To the south the province is shut in by the wide mountainous tract which stretches from the Bay of Bengal through Bastar to the Godavari, and west of that river is continued onward to the rocky ridges and plateaus of Khandesh by a succession of ranges that enclose the plain of Berar along its southern border.

In 1905 the greater part of Sambalpur district, with the feudatory states of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonpur, Patna and Kalahandi, were transferred to Bengal, while the feudatory states of Chang Bhakar, Korea, Surguja, Udaipur and Jashpur were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces.

Chandernagore has played an important part in the European history of Bengal.

Humayun was thus left in possession of his father's recent conquests, which were in dispute with the Indian Afghans under Sher Shah, governor of Bengal.

From the north-eastern extremity of Assam where, near Sadya, the Lohit, the Dibong and the Dihong unite to form the wide placid Brahmaputra of the plains - one of the grandest rivers of the world - its south-westerly course to the Bay of Bengal is sufficiently well known.

Large plantations have been formed by the Government of India both in Assam and Bengal, but most FIG.

The principal mining districts are those of Hazaribagh in Bengal and Nellore in Madras; in the former district the mica has usually a ruby tint, whilst in the latter it is more often greenish.

Along its eastern boundary adjoining Burdwan district the country is flat and alluvial, presenting the appearance of the ordinary paddy lands of Bengal.

The Bishnupur raj was one of the largest estates in Bengal in the end of the 18th century, but it was sold for arrears of revenue shortly after the conclusion of the permanent settlement in 1793.

It lies north of the Darrang district of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and is bounded on the east by the Daphla Hills and on the west by independent Bhutia tribes.

This antelope, widely distributed in India, with the exception of Ceylon and the region east of the Bay of Bengal, stands about 32 in.

The town is the largest cantonment in Lower Bengal, having accommodation for two batteries of artillery, the wing of a European regiment and two native battalions.

It is a station on the Eastern Bengal railway.

It reported favourably, especially on the use of the measurements for primary classification, but recommended also the adoption in part of a system of "finger prints" as suggested by Francis Galton, and already practised in Bengal.

Bertillonage exhibited certain defects which were first brought to light in Bengal.

In Bengal measurements were already abandoned by 1897, when the finger print system was adopted throughout British India.

Between 1847 and 1858 branch societies were formed in different parts of India, especially in Bengal, and the new society made rapid progress, for which it was largely indebted to the spread of English education and the work of Christian missionaries.

It is a narrow strip of country lying between the Bay of Bengal and the high range of hills which form the eastern boundary of the province towards Siam.

The density of population per square mile is 44 as compared with 167 for the whole of India and S52 for the Bengal Delta.

It happened, accordingly, that the Burmese, carrying their arms into Assam and Manipur, penetrated to the British border near Sylhet, odthe north-east frontier of Bengal, beyond which were the possessions of the chiefs of Cachar, under the protection of the British government.

Alphonse de Candolle (Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 158) points out that the epoch of its introduction into different countries agrees with the idea that its origin was in India, Cochin-China or the Malay Archipelago, and regards it as most probable that its primitive range extended from Bengal to Cochin-China.

The second son, Shuja, governor of Bengal, a dissolute and sensual prince, was dissatisfied, and raised an army to dispute the throne with Dara.

The chief festival in Bengal - sometimes termed the Christmas of Bengal - celebrates the goddess's birth in the sixth Hindu month (parts of September and October).

This species has a more extensive geographical range than the last, being found in the Bengal Sundarbans near Calcutta, Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Java, Sumatra and Borneo.

The climate of Bhagalpur partakes of the character both of the deltaic districts of Bengal and of the districts of Behar, between which it is situated.

A large trade is carried on by rail and river with Lower Bengal.

This mighty stream, which in its lower course supplies the river system of Bengal, rises in the Garhwal state, and falls into the Bay of Bengal after a course of 1500 m.

The vast confluence of waters rushes towards the sea, receiving further additions from the hill country on the east, and forming a broad estuary known under the name of the Meghna, which enters the Bay of Bengal near Noakhali.

Such changes are so rapid and on so vast a scale, and the corroding power of the current on the bank so irresistible, that in Lower Bengal it is considered perilous to build any structure of a large or permanent character on its margin.

The Ganges is crossed by six railway bridges on its course as far as Benares; and another, at Sara in Eastern Bengal, has been sanctioned.

About two dozen ugly-looking species inhabit rivers and estuaries from Bengal to Australia.

The Mahommedans are chiefly the descendants of the Pathans who took refuge in Orissa after the subversion of their kingdom in Bengal by the Moguls in the 16th century.

It is peculiar to this tract, not being found in any of the neighbouring countries of Assam, Nepal, Tibet or Bengal, and unites in an eminent degree the two qualities of strength and beauty.

The rains descend in floods upon the heights; but in the vicinity of Tasisudon, the capital, they are moderate; there are frequent showers, but nothing that can be compared to the tropical rains of Bengal.

The relations of the British with Bhutan commenced in 1772, when the Bhutias invaded the principality of Kuch Behar, a dependency of Bengal.

The Bhutias not complying with this demand, the governor-general issued a proclamation, dated the 12th of November 1864, by which the eleven Western or Bengal Dwars were forthwith incorporated with the queen's Indian dominions.

The Bhutan government formally ceded all the eighteen Dwars of Bengal and Assam, with the rest of the territory taken from them, and agreed to liberate all kidnapped British subjects.

In the Indian Ocean it covers the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Gulf, the Mozambique Channel and the region to the south-west of Madagascar.

In a modified degree the same is true of the Indian fields; large supplies are unworked, but in several districts, especially about Raniganj and elsewhere in Bengal, workings are fully developed.

In 1873 there could be seen, in the thick coal seams of Bengal, near Raniganj, a seam about 50 ft.

On his return he was contemplating emigration to New England, when in June 1773 Lord North, on the recommendation of Lord Barrington, appointed him a member of the newly constituted supreme council of Bengal at a salary of io,000 per annum.

Traces of a somewhat similar story have also been met with among the Mongolian Tharus in northern India (Report of the Census of Bengal, 1872, p. 160), and, according to Dr Livingstone, among the Africans of Lake Ngami.

The Calcutta mint was established by the East India Company in 1757, but other mints in Bengal continued to be used till about 1835, when the Calcutta mint was rebuilt.

It lies between Siam and the Bay of Bengal, enclosed by mountains on three sides, viz., the main chain of the Bilauktaung on the east, rising in places to 5000 feet, which, with its densely wooded spurs, forms an almost impassable barrier, between British and Siamese territory; the Nwahlabo in the centre, which takes its name from its loftiest peak (5000 ft.); and a third.

From Bengal are imported opium, drugs and cloths; from China, teas, raw silk, silk piece-goods, coarse China wares, paper, and innumerable smaller articles for the Chinese settlers.

He was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840.

Warren Hastings sent from Bengal Sir Eyre Coote, who, though repulsed at Chidambaram, defeated Hyder thrice successively in the battles of Porto Novo, Pollilur and Sholingarh, while Tippoo was forced to raise the siege of Wandiwash, ana Vellore was provisioned.

It was established in 1875 by the government of Bengal, in co-operation with the public, and is 33 acres in area.

He sailed from them early in 1782 to carry out a vehement attack on the British forces in the Bay of Bengal.

Forest trees, no less than cereals, have their indwelling spirits; the fauns and satyrs of classical Literature were goat-footed and the tree spirit of the Russian peasantry takes the form of a goat; in Bengal and the East Indies wood-cutters endeavour to propitiate the spirit of the tree which they cut down; and in many parts of the world trees are regarded as the abode of the spirits of the dead.

In 1905 the five Oriya states of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonpur, Patna and Kalahandi were transferred from the Central Provinces to Bengal.

Two great rivers, the Nerbudda and Sone, take their rise at the side of the Amarkantak hill in the north-west corner of the division, the Nerbudda flowing nearly due west to the Bombay coast, the Sone ultimately falling into the Ganges in Lower Bengal.

In 1905 the district of Sambalpur, together with the five feudatory states, was transferred to Bengal.

On Lord Ripon's departure from India in November 1884 there were extraordinary manifestations in his favour on the part of the Hindu population of Bengal and Bombay, and more than a thousand addresses were presented to him.

A branch of the Bengal & North-Western railway to Azamgarh town was opened in 1898.

On reaching Bengal in 1793, he and his companions lost all their property in the Hugh; but having received the charge of an indigo factory at Malda, he was soon able to prosecute the work of translating the Bible into Bengali.

The district is traversed by the main line of the Bengal & North-Western railway and by branch lines, part of which were begun as a famine relief work in 1874.

His charities were without limit; thus he contributed £300,000 for the relief of the sufferers from the Bengal famine of 1873-1874, and it is computed that during his possession of the raj he expended at least f 2,000,000 on charities, works of public utility, and charitable remissions of rent.

As representative of the landowners of Berar and Bengal he took an important part in the discussion on the Bengal Tenancy Bill.

In 1886 he was created a raja bahadur, exempted from attendance at the civil courts, and appointed a member of the legislative council of Bengal.

The Pindaris were surrounded on all sides by a great army, consisting of 120,000 men and 300 guns, which converged upon them from Bengal, the Deccan and Gujarat under the supreme command of Lord Hastings in person.

Joining the 2nd Bengal Grenadiers he went through the first Sikh War, and was present at the battles of Moodkee, Ferozeshah and Sobraon.

The eria or arrindi moth of Bengal and Assam, Attacus ricini, which feeds on the castor-oil plant, yields seven generations yearly, forming loose flossy orange-red and sometimes white cocoons.

In 1857 commenced the exportation of Japan silk, which became so fierce a competitor with Bengal silk as gradually to displace it in favour; and the native silk reeled in Bengal has almost ceased to be made, only the best European filatures, produced under the supervision of skilled Europeans, now coming forward.

Chaitanya was the Vaishnav reformer of Bengal, with his home at Nadiya.

In the great Bengal famine of 1769-1770, which occurred shortly after the foundation of British rule, but while the native officials were still in power, a third of the population, or ten millions out of thirty millions, perished.

In the famine of 1901, the worst of recent years, the loss of life in British districts was 3% of the population affected, as against 33% in the Bengal famine of 1770.

Jaeschke from 1860 to 1867 made several important communications, chiefly with reference to the phonetics and the dialectical pronunciation, to the academies of Berlin and St Petersburg, and in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Patna in Bengal is the chief market for the Nepal trade; Diwangiri and Udalguri for Assam, and Darjeeling and Kalimpong for Sikkim and Chumbi.

It is rather curious that nothing is said of this Tibetan rule in India, except in the Chinese annals, where it is mentioned until the end of the monarchy in the 10th century, as extending over Bengal to the sea - the Bay of Bengal being called the Tibetan Sea.

About the middle of the;century Magadha passed under the sway of the Pal kings of Bengal.

The Australian Presbyterians have important agencies in the South Seas and in Korea, the Australian Baptists in Bengal, the Canadians of various denominations in the Far North-West of the Dominion, and in India and China.

There are several kinds, the chief being the snow or ounce, Chinese, Bengal, Persian, East Indian and African.

The first variety inhabit the Himalayas and are beautifully covered with a deep soft fur quite long compared to the flat harsh hair of the Bengal sort.

The Bengal are dark and medium in colour, short and hard hair, but useful for floor rugs, as they do not hold the dust like the fuller and softer hair of the kinds previously named.

The coats of the Bengal kind are short and of a dark orange brown with black stripes, those from east or further India are similar in colour, but longer in the hair, while those from north of the Himalayas and the mountains of China are not only huge in size, but have a very long soft hair of delicate orange brown with very white flanks, and marked generally with the blackest of stripes.

Here is the junction of the great railway system which unites Bengal with Central India and Bombay, and is developing into a great centre of inland and export trade.

The surface of this table-land slopes from west to east, as indicated by the direction of the drainage of the country, - the great rivers, the Cauvery, Godavari, Kistna and Pennar, though deriving their sources from the base of the Western Ghats, all finding their way into the Bay of Bengal through fissures in the Eastern Ghats.

In the struggles which ensued, the Hindu kingdom of Telingana fell bit by bit to the Bahmani dynasty, who advanced their frontier to Golconda in 1373, to Warangal in 1421, and to the Bay of Bengal in 1472.

In 1788 Sir Joseph Banks, at the request of the directors, drew up a memoir on the cultivation of economic plants in Bengal, in which he gave special prominence to tea, pointing out the regions most favourable for its cultivation.

The East India Company's great work, the Ganges canal, constructed between 1840 and 18J4 before there was a mile of railway open in India, still holds its place unsurpassed among later irrigation work for boldness of design and completeness of execution, a lasting monument to the genius of Sir Proby Cautley, an officer of the Bengal Artillery, but a born engineer.

But now the railroad is the great highway which connects Upper India with Lower Bengal.

About the middle of the 8th century Magadha was conquered by Gopala, who had made himself master in Bengal, and founded the imperial dynasty known as the Palas of Bengal.

In the 11th century the Pala empire, which, according to the Tibetan historian Taranath, extended in the 9th century from the Bay of Bengal to Delhi and Jalandhar (Jullundur) in the north and the Vindhyan range in the south, was partly dismembered by the rise of the "Sena" dynasty in Bengal; and at the close of the 12th century both Palas and Senas were swept away by the Mahommedan conquerors, the city of Behar itself being captured by the Turki free-lance Mahommed-i-Bakhtyar Khilji in 1193, by surprise, with a party of 200 horsemen.

Behar now came under the rule of the Mahommedan governors of Bengal.

About 1330 the southern part was annexed to Delhi, while north Behar remained for some time longer subject to Bengal.

As a mark of the regent's regard Lord Moira received the order of the Garter in 1812, and in the same year was appointed governor-general of Bengal and commander-in-chief of the forces in India.

It is essentially an inhabitant of tidal waters and estuaries, and often goes out to sea; hence its wide distribution, from the whole coast of Bengal to southern China, to the northern coasts of Australia and even to the Fiji islands.

The same word is found in Nazim, applied to the Nawab of Bengal, and in Nizamat, the old term for criminal jurisdiction.

He was educated at University College, London, and in 1868 went out to Bengal in the service of the Indian Government Telegraph department.

The town owes its importance entirely to being the headquarters of the maharaja of Burdwan, the premier nobleman of lower Bengal, whose rent-roll is upwards of £300,000.

As regards European industries, Burdwan takes the first place in Bengal.

It was at first subordinate to Benkulen, the company's principal station in Sumatra, but in 1823 it was placed under the administration of Bengal.

In the course of the century it was conquered by the Pathans and formed part of the Pathan kingdom of Bengal.

At the beginning of the 18th century it appears as a kind of military fief held under the nawab of Murshidabad by one Asadullah Pathan, whose family had probably been its chieftains since the fall of the Pathan dynasty of Bengal in 1600.

The slow loris (Nycticebus tardigradus) is a heavier built and larger animal, ranging from eastern Bengal to Cochin China, Siam, the Malay Peninsula, Java and Sumatra.

Nutmeg and mace are almost exclusively obtained from the Banda Islands, although the cultivation has been attempted with varying success in Singapore, Penang, Bengal, Reunion, Brazil, French Guiana and the West Indies.

The district is partly traversed by the main line of the Eastern Bengal railway and by two branch lines.

The chief part of its western side is washed by the Arabian Sea, and the chief part of its eastern side by the Bay of Bengal.

To this compact dominion the British have added Burma, the strip of country on the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal.

Two groups of islands in the Bay of Bengal, the Andamans and the Nicobars; one group in the Arabian Sea, the Laccadives; and the outlying station of Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, with Perim, and protectorates over the island of Sokotra, along the southern coast of Arabia and in the Persian Gulf, are all politically included within the Indian empire; while on the coast of the peninsula itself, Portuguese and French settlements break at intervals the continuous line of British territory.

They extend River from the Bay of Bengal on the east to the Afghan frontier and the Arabian Sea on the west, and contain the richest and most densely crowded provinces of the empire.

About 167 millions of people now live on and around these river plains, in the provinces known as the lieutenant-governorship of Bengal, Eastern Bengal and Assam, the United Provinces, the Punjab, Sind, Rajputana and other native states.

It turns, however, almost due east instead of west, enters India at the eastern extremity of the Himalayas, and becomes the Brahmaputra of Eastern Bengal and Assam.

In this way the rainfall, alike from the northern and southern slopes of the Himalayas, pours down into the river plains of Bengal.

The drainage has therefore to make its way across India to the eastwards, now turning sharply round projecting ranges, now tumbling down ravines, or rushing along the valleys, until the rain which the Bombay sea-breeze has dropped upon the Western Ghats finally falls into the Bay of Bengal.

They cover a large area in Bengal and Madras and extend into Ceylon; and they are found also in Bundelkhand and in Gujarat.

Up or down this plain, at opposite seasons, sweep the monsoon winds, in a direction at right angles to that of their nominal course; and thus vapour which has been brought by winds from the Bay of Bengal is discharged as snow and rain on the peaks and hillsides of the Western Himalayas.

Eastward from the Bengal delta, two alluvial plains stretch up between the hills which connect the Himalayan system with that of the Burmese peninsula.

The rains, however, are prolonged some three or four weeks later than in tracts to the north of the Satpuras, since they are also brought by the easterly winds which blow from the Bay of Bengal in October and the early part of November, when the recurved southerly wind ceases to blow up the Gangetic valley, and sets towards the south-east coast.

The south-west monsoon currents usually set in during the first fortnight of June on the Bombay and Bengal coasts, and give more The or less general rain in every part of India during the next three months.

On the face of the Western Ghats, and on the Khasi hills, overlooking the Bay of Bengal, where the mountains catch the masses of vapour as it rises off the sea, the rainfall is enormous.

Similarly the Bengal monsoon passes by the Coromandel coast and the Carnatic with an occasional shower, taking a larger volume to Masulipatam and Orissa, and abundant rain to Bengal, Assam and Cachar.

The same current also supplies with rain the broad band across India, which includes the Satpura range, Chota Nagpur, the greater part of the Central Provinces and Central India, Orissa and Bengal.

In its rear springs up a gentle steady north-east wind, which gradually extends over the Bay of Bengal, and is known as the north-east monsoon.

In 1903 the number of persons killed by tigers in the whole of India was 866, while forty years previously 700 people were said to be killed annually in Bengal alone.

Next in size is the swamp deer or bara-singha, signifying " twelve points " (C. duvauceli), which is common in Lower Bengal and Assam.

These thirteen provinces or local governments are Ajmer-Merwara, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, British Baluchistan, Bengal, Bombay, Burma, Central Provinces prescribing the conditions and degree of social intercourse permitted between the several castes.

It is doubtful if Buddhism, and still more so if Jainism and Sikhism, all of which are commonly recognized as distinct religions, ever differed from Hinduism to a greater extent than did the tenets of the earlier followers of Chaitanya in Bengal or those of the Lingayats in Mysore; and yet these latter two are regarded only as sects of Hinduism.

In proportion to the total population Islam is most strongly represented in the NorthWest Frontier Province, where it is the religion of 92% of the inhabitants; then follow Kashmir and Sind with about 75 each, Eastern Bengal and Assam with 58%, the Punjab with 49%, Bengal with 18%, and the United Provinces with 14%.

The greater part of the remainder are found in Bengal on the borders of Burma, on the borders of Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, and in the Spiti, Lahul and Kanawar districts of the Punjab Himalayas, where many of the inhabitants are of Tibetan origin.

Next follow the five lieutenantgovernorships of Bengal, the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, the Punjab, Burma, and Eastern Bengal and Assam, for each of which a council may be appointed, beginning with Bengal.

The chief nonregulation provinces are the Punjab, Central Provinces and Burma; but non-regulation districts are also to be found in Bengal, Eastern Bengal and Assam, the United Provinces and Sind.

Broadly speaking, the subdivision is characteristic of Bengal, where revenue duties are in the background, and the tahsil of Madras, where the land settlement requires attention year by year.

Bengal (including Eastern Bengal and Assam), Madras, Bombay and the old North-Western Provinces each has a high court, established by charter under an act of parliament, with judges appointed by the crown.

The superior stability of the village system was overlooked, and in the old provinces of Bengal and Madras the village organization has gradually been suffered to fall into decay.

In Bengal the assessment has been accomplished once and for all, but throughout the greater part of the rest of India the process is continually going on.

Lower Bengal and a few adjoining districts of the United Provinces and of Madras have a permanent settlement, i.e.

When the Company obtained the diwdni or financial administration of Bengal in 1765, the theory of a settlement, as described above, was unknown.

At last, in 1789, a more accurate investigation into the agricultural resources of Bengal was commenced, and the settlement based upon this investigation was declared perpetual by Lord Cornwallis in 1793.

Later the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, since amended by an act of 1898, created various classes of privileged tenants, including one class known as " settled ryots," in which the qualifying condition is holding land, not necessarily the same land, for twelve years continuously in one village.

It is believed that the ryots will eventually be able to secure, and to hold against all corners, the strong legal position which the Bengal Tenancy Act has given them.

The permanent settlement was confined to the three provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa, according to their boundaries at that time.

The prevailing system throughout the Madras presidency is the ryotwari, which takes the cultivator or peasant proprietor as its rent-paying unit, somewhat as the Bengal system takes the zamindar.

The authorities in England favoured the zamindars system already at work in Bengal, which appeared at least calculated to secure punctual payment.

Throughout British territory the growth of the poppy is almost universally prohibited, except in a certain tract of Bengal and the United Provinces, where it is grown with the help of advances from government and under strict supervision.

The plant grows wild in many parts of India; but the cultivation of it for ganja is practically confined to a limited area in the Rajshahi district of eastern Bengal, and charas is mainly imported from Central Asia.

Other sources of revenue are stamps, levied on judicial proceedings and commercial documents; registration of mortgages and other instruments; and provincial rates, chiefly in Bengal and the United Provinces for public works or rural police.

The rice crop is most important in Burma, Bengal and Madras, and there is an average of 20 million acres under rice in the other provinces of British India.

In Bengal the area varies from 36 to 40 million acres according to the season.

A third sort of millet, ragi or marua, is cultivated chiefly in Madras and Bengal.

Among pulses gram covers in ordinary years more than so millions of acres, chiefly in the United Provinces, the Punjab and Bengal.

Bengal and the United Provinces are at present the chief sources of supply for the foreign demand, but gingelly is largely exported from Madras, and, to a smaller extent, from Burma.

But the mangoes of Bombay, of Multan, and of Malda in Bengal, and the oranges of Nagpur and the Khasi hills, enjoy a high reputation; while the guavas of Madras are made into an excellent preserve.

The betel-nut or areca palm is chiefly grown in certain favoured localities, such as the deltaic districts of Bengal and the highlands of southern India.

The normal area under sugar-cane in India is generally about 3 million acres, chiefly in the United Provinces, Bengal, and the Punjab.

In the early years of the 19th century there were colonies of English planters in many districts of Bengal, and it was calculated that the planters of North Behar alone had a turnover of a million sterling.

At the head of the Bay of Bengal in Chittagong district, side by side with coffee on the Nilgiri hills, on the forest-clad slopes of Kumaon and Kangra, amid the low-lying jungle of the Bhutan Dwars, and even in Arakan, the energetic pioneers of tea-planting have established their industry.

The area under tea, of which nine-tenths lies in the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, expanded by 85% during the sixteen years from 1885 to 1901, while the production increased by 167%.

The cultivation of coffee is confined to southern India, though attempts have been made to introduce the plant both into Lower Burma and into the Eastern Bengal district of Chittagong.

In Bengal Proper, and also in Madras, it may be broadly said that horses are not bred.

Here it meets the sal, which however is more especially found in the sub-Himalayan tracts of the United Provinces and Eastern Bengal and Assam.

Next to agriculture, weaving is the most important industry in the country, the cotton-mills of Bombay and the jute mills of Bengal having increased greatly of recent years.

But now the larger part of the cotton goods used in India is manufactured in mills in that country or in England, and the handloom weavers' output is confined to the coarsest kinds of cloth, or to certain special kinds of goods, such as the turbans and " saris " of Bombay, or the muslins of Arni, Cuddapah, and Madura in Madras, and of Dacca in Bengal.

The cultivation of jute is confined to a comparatively restricted area, more than three-fourths of the total acreage being in eastern Bengal and Assam, while nearly the whole of the remaining fourth is in Bengal.

Owing to disease among the silk-worms the industry has declined of recent years; and in 1886 an inquiry was held, which resulted in putting the silk-rearing industry of Bengal on a better basis.

The most important seat of the silk-weaving industry is Bengal, but there are few parts of India where some silk fabrics are not woven.

Putting aside salt, which has been already treated, the chief mining resources of India at the present day are the coal mines, the gold mines, the petroleum oil-fields, the ruby mines, manganese deposits, mica mines in Bengal, and the tin ores and jade of Burma.

In respect, however, of both the number and size of its mines Bengal comes easily first, with seven-eighths of the total output, the largest mines being those of Raniganj, Jherria, and Giridih, while the Singareni mine in Hyderabad comes next.

Many of the Bengal mines, however, are very small.

The total output in1905-1906was 8,417,739 tons; while there were 47 companies engaged in coal-mining, of which 46 were in Bengal.

European enterprise, attracted by the richness of the ore and the low rate of wages, has repeatedly tried to establish iron-works on a large scale; but hitherto every one of these attempts has ended in failure with the exception of the iron-works at Barrakur in Bengal, first started in 1865, which after many years of struggle seem to have turned the corner of success.

The principal sources of iron-stone at present are the Madras ores, chiefly at Salem, the Chanda ores in the Central Provinces, and the ores obtained at and near Raniganj in Bengal.

Mica has long been obtained in Bengal, chiefly in the Hazaribagh district, and there is a rubycoloured variety which is held in great estimation.

In Bengal many of the upper castes of Sudras have devoted themselves to general trade; but there again the Jain Marwaris from Rajputana occupy the front rank.

Fa-Hien entered India from Afghanistan, and journeyed down the whole Gangetic valley to the Bay of Bengal in A.D.

Soon afterwards Megasthenes, as Greek ambassador resident at a court in Bengal (306-298 B.C.), had opportunities for the closest observation.

Asoka's empire included the greater part of Afghanistan, a large part of Baluchistan, Sind, Kashmir, Nepal, Bengal to the mouths of the Ganges, and peninsular India down to the Palar river.

After the treacherous murder of his brother by Sasanka, king of Central Bengal, he was confirmed as raja, though still very young, by the nobles of Thanesar in 606, though it would appear that his effective rule did not begin till six years later.'

By the end of five and a half years he had actually conquered the north-western regions and also, probably, part of Bengal.

In 1199 one of his lieutenants, named Bakhtiyar, advanced into Bengal, and expelled by an audacious stratagem the last Hindu raja of Nadia.

The independence of the Afghan kings - of Bengal is generally dated from 1336, when Mahommed Tughlak was yet on the throne.

To complete this sketch of India at the time of Baber's invasion it remains to say that an independent Mahommedan dynasty reigned at Ahmedabad in Gujarat for nearly two centuries (from 1391 to 1573), until conquered by Akbar; and that Bengal was similarly independent, under a line of Afghan kings, with Gaur for their capital, from 1336 to 1573.

In Humayun's reign the subject Afghans rose in revolt under Sher Shah, a native of Bengal, who for a short time established his authority over all Hindustan.

In the same year his generals drove out the Afghans from Bengal, and reunited the lower valley of the Ganges to Hindustan.

In 1578 Orissa was annexed to Bengal by his Hindu general Todar Mall, who forthwith organized a revenue survey of the whole province.

The Mahrattas were in possession of the entire west and great part of the centre of the peninsula; while the rich and unwarlike province of Bengal, though governed by an hereditary line of nawabs founded by Murshid Kuli Khan in 1704, still continued to pour its wealth into the imperial treasury.

But Ahmad Shah had no ambition to found a dynasty of his own, nor were the British in Bengal yet ready for territorial conquest.

An Afghan of the Lodi dynasty was on the throne of Delhi, and another Afghan king was ruling over Bengal.

At length Story settled down as a shopkeeper at Goa, Leedes entered the service of the Great Mogul, Newbery died on his way home overland, and Fitch, after a lengthened peregrination in Bengal, Pegu, Siam and other parts of the East Indies, returned to England.

In 1611 Captain Hippon in the seventh separate voyage essayed a landing at Pulicat, but was driven off by the Dutch, who were already settled there, and sailed farther up the coast to Pettapoli, where he founded the first madras English settlement in the Bay of Bengal, which ments.

In 1653 Madras was raised to an independent presidency, and in 1658 all the settlements in Bengal and on the Coromandel coast were made subordinate to Fort St George.

In 1633 eight Englishmen from Masulipatam, under Ralph Cartwright, sailed northward to Harishpur near Cuttack on the mouth of the Mahanadi, and entered into negotiations to trade with the governor of Orissa; and' in June Bengal 1633 Cartwright founded a factory at Balasore, which settle- 33 g Y ?

In 1651 the English reached Hugli, which was at that time the chief port of Bengal; about that year Gabriel Boughton, a surgeon, obtained from the Mogul viceroy permission for the English to trade in Bengal.

In 1657 Hugli became the head agency in Bengal, with Balasore and Cossimbazar in the Gangetic delta and Patna in Behar under its control.

In 1664 Shaista Khan, the brother of the empress Nur Jahan, became viceroy of Bengal, and though a strong and just ruler from the native point of view, was not favourable The to the foreign traders.

At this time Job Charnock was the chief of the Bengal council, and, owing to an affray with the Mogul troops at Hugli on the 28th of October 1686, he embarked the company's goods and servants on board light vessels and dropped down the on the 31st of December 1600, and the first expedition of four ships under James Lancaster left Torbay towards the end of April 1601, and reached Achin in Sumatra on the 5th of June 16.02, returning with a cargo of spices.

The British, especially, appear to have been submissive to the native powers at Madras no less than in Bengal.

At the time of Aurangzeb's death in 1707 the nawab or governor of Bengal was Murshid Kuli Khan, known also as Jafar Khan.

Hitherto the capital of Bengal had been at Dacca on the eastern frontier of the empire, whence the piratical attacks of the Portuguese and of the Arakanese or Mughs could be most easily checked.

Murshid Kuli Khan ruled over Bengal prosperously for twenty-one years, and left his power to a son-in-law and a grandson.

The hereditary succession was broken in 1740 by Ali Vardi Khan, who was the last of the great nawabs of Bengal.

In 1758 Clive was appointed by the court of directors to be governor of all the company's settlements in Bengal.

On the west the shahzada or imperial prince, known afterwards as the emperor Shah Alam, with a mixed army of Afghans and Mahrattas, and supported by the nawab wazir of Oudh, was advancing his own claims to the province of Bengal.

From 1760 to 1765, while Clive was at home, the history of the British in Bengal contains little that is creditable.

The company's servants claimed the privilege of carrying on private trade throughout Bengal, free from inland dues and all other imposts.

The nawab's officers fired upon a British boat, and forthwith all Bengal was in a blaze.

Meanwhile the council at Calcutta had twice found the opportunity they desired of selling the government of Bengal to a new nawab.

The provinces of Allahabad and Kora, forming the lower part of the Doab, were handed over to Shah Alam himself, who in his turn granted to the company the diwani or financial administration of Bengal, Behar and Orissa, together with the Northern Circars.

A puppet nawab was still maintained at Murshidabad, who received an annual allowance of about half a million sterling; and half that amount was paid to the emperor as tribute from Bengal.

Between that date and the arrival of Warren Hastings in 1772 nothing of importance occurred in Bengal beyond the terrible famine of 1770, which is officially reported to have swept away one-third of the inhabitants.

From 1 2 to 1774 GoFirstvernor and P Y 77774 - he was governor of Bengal; from 1774 to 1785 he was the first titular governor-general of India, presiding over a council nominated, like himself, not by the company, but by an act of parliament, known as the Regulating Act.

The Bombay government was naturally emulous to follow the example of Madras and Bengal, and to establish its influence at the court of Poona by placing its own nominee upon the throne.

Warren Hastings, who in his capacity of governor-general claimed a right of control over the decisions of the Bombay government, strongly disapproved of the treaty of Surat, but, when war once broke out, he threw the whole force of the Bengal army into the scale.

His rule lasted from 1786 to 1793, and is celebrated for two events - the introduction of the permanent settlement into Bengal and the second Mysore war.

The system thus organized in Bengal was afterwards extended to Madras and Bombay, when those presidencies also acquired territorial sovereignty.

But the achievement most familiarly associated with the name of Cornwallis is the permanent settlement of the land revenue of Bengal.

For the second time the Bengal army, stimulated by the energy of Hastings, saved the honour of the British name.

The successors of Alompra, after having subjugated all Burma, and overrun Assam, which was then an independent kingdom, began a series of encroachments upon British territory in Bengal.

One expedition with gunboats proceeded up the Brahmaputra into Assam; another marched by land through Chittagong into Arakan, for the Bengal sepoys refused to go by sea; a third, and the strongest, sailed from Madras direct to the mouth of the Irrawaddy.

In the year 1817 no fewer than seven hundred widows are said to have been burned alive in the Bengal presidency alone.

In the following year the sepoys of the Bengal War army mutinied, and all the valley of the Ganges from Patna to Delhi rose in open rebellion.

The Bengal sepoys, especially, thought that they could see into the future farther than the rest of their countrymen.

During the time of his administration a famine in Lower Bengal in 1874 was successfully obviated by government relief and public works, though at an enormous cost; the gaekwar of Baroda was dethroned in 1875 for misgovernment and disloyalty, while his dominions were continued to a nominated child of the family; and the prince of Wales (Edward VII.) visited the country in the cold season of 1875-1876.

In addition, after making careful inquiry through various commissions, he reformed the systems of education and police, laid down a comprehensive scheme of irrigation, improved the leave rules and the excessive report-writing of the civil service, encouraged the native princes by the formation of the Imperial Cadet Corps and introduced many other reforms. His term of office was also notable for the coronation durbar at Delhi in January 1903, the expedition to Lhasa in 1904, which first unveiled that forbidden city to European gaze, and the partition of Bengal in 1905.

The occasion though not the cause of trouble arose from the partition of Bengal, which was represented by Bengali agitators as an insult to their mother country.

While the first riots occurred in the Punjab and Madras, it is only in Bengal and eastern Bengal that the unrest has been bitter and continuous.

At first the government attempted to quell the disaffection by means of the ordinary law, with fair success outside Bengal; but there, owing to the secret ramifications of the conspiracy, it has been found necessary to adopt special measures.

It further authorized the addition of two members to the executive councils at Madras and Bombay, and the creation cf an executive council in Bengal and also (subject to conditions) in other provinces under a lieutenantgovernor.

A form of cap much worn in Bengal and western India is known as Irani kullah, or Persian cap. It is made of goatskin and is shaped like a tarbush but has no tassel.

In Bengal a sort of turban is worn which can be taken off like a hat.

In Bengal, Madras and Bombay Presidencies women do not wear a skirt, only a choli and sari.

The babus of Bengal have taken to English-made shoes of patent leather worn over white socks or stockings.

At the end of the Seven Years' War, seeing no chance of promotion, he entered the service of the East India Company, and was appointed surveyor of the Company's dominions in Bengal (1764), with the rank of captain in the Bengal Engineers.

His most valuable works include the Bengal Atlas (1779), the first approximately correct map of India (1783), the Geographical System of Herodotus (1800), the Comparative Geography of Western Asia (1831), and important studies on the geography of northern Africa - in introductions to the Travels of Mungo Park and Hornemann - and the currents of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

It lies north of Lakhimpur district, in the province of eastern Bengal and Assam, and is bounded on the east by the Mishmi Hills and on the west by the Miri Hills, the villages of the tribe extending to the Dibong river.

See Colonel Dalton's Ethnology of Bengal, 1872.

The district lies along the north-eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal, with an area of 5136 sq.

The course of the great rivers marks the prevailing slope of the land, which falls away from the Himalayas, the Rajputana uplands, and the Vindhyan plateau south-eastwards towards the Bay of Bengal.

Below the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna at Allahabad the country begins to assume the appearance of the Bengal plains, and once more expands northwards to the foot of the Nepal Himalayas.

In point of humidity and temperature the province lies half-way between Bengal and the Punjab.

In the Benares division, which was the first portion to come under British administration, the land revenue was permanently fixed in 1795, on the same principles that had been previously adopted in Bengal; and there a special class of tenants, as well as the landlords, enjoy a privileged status.

North of the river the Oudh & Rohilkhand system connects with Bengal and with the Punjab.

These new acquisitions, known as the ceded and conquered provinces, continued to be administered by the governor-general as part of Bengal.

It consists of a strip of country running along the eastern seaboard of the Bay of Bengal, from the Naaf estuary, on the borders of Chittagong, to Cape Negrais.

The principal rivers of Arakan are - (1) the Naaf estuary, in the north, which forms the boundary between the division and Chittagong; (2) the Myu river, an arm of the sea, running a course almost parallel with the coast for about 50 m.; (3) the Koladaing river, rising near the Blue mountain, in the extreme north-east, and falling into the Bay of Bengal a few miles south of the Myu river, navigable by vessels of from 300 to 400 tons burden for a distance 01 40 m.

The state is one of the five Uriya feudatories, which were transferred from the Central Provinces to Bengal, on the reconstitution of that province in October 1905.

The Bengal tiger is not found.

In the following year Bengal, Madras, Haidarabad and Mysore were invaded.

The most striking figures, however, are those for Bombay and Bengal which are given below, as well as the total mortality in India.

After once more visiting Malabar, Canara and the Maldives, he departed for Bengal, a voyage of forty-three days, landing at Sadkawan (Chittagong).

In Bengal he visited the famous Moslem saint Shaykh Jalaluddin, whose shrine (Shah Jalal at Silhet) is still maintained.

This excessive rainfall is caused by the fact that Cherrapunji stands on the edge of the plateau overlooking the plains of Bengal, where it catches the full force of the monsoon as it rises from the sea.

The name "Hindu" itself is of foreign origin, being derived from the Persians, by whom the river Sindhu was called Hindhu, a name subsequently applied to the inhabitants of that frontier district, and gradually extended over the upper and middle reaches of the Gangetic valley, whence this whole tract of country between the Himalaya and the Vindhya mountains, west of Bengal, came to be called by the foreign conquerors "Hindustan," or the abode of the Hindus; whilst the native writers called it "Aryavarta," or the abode of the Aryas.

It can hardly be doubted that this custom has been largely responsible for the crime of female infanticide, formerly so prevalent in India; as it also probably is to some extent for infant marriages, still too common in some parts of India, especially Bengal; and even for the all but universal repugnance to the re-marriage of widows, even when these had been married in early childhood and had never joined their husbands.

The term is used in Bombay, Madras and Bengal to denote a considerable number of castes of moderate respectability, the higher of whom are considered ` clean ' Sudras, while the precise status of the lower is a question which lends itself to endless controversy."In northern and north-western India, on the other hand," the grade next below the twice-born rank is occupied by a number of castes from whose hands Brahmans and members of the higher castes will take water and certain kinds of sweetmeats.

Nor do Buddhist places of worship appear as a rule to have been destroyed by Hindu sectaries, but they seem rather to have been taken over by them for their own religious uses; at any rate there are to this day not a few Hindu shrines, especially in Bengal, dedicated to Dharmaraj," the prince of righteousness,"as the Buddha is commonly styled.

Whilst very numerous, particularly amongst the low-caste population, in western, central and northern India, resident adherents of Kabir's doctrine are rare in Bengal and the south; although there is hardly a town in India where strolling beggars may not be found singing songs of Kabir in the original or as translated into the local dialects."

Chaitanya, the founder of the great Vaishnava sect of Bengal, was the son of a high-caste Brahman of Nadiya, the famous Bengal seat of Sanskrit learning, where he was born in 1485, two years after the birth of Martin Luther, the German reformer.

Chaitanya's movement, being chiefly directed against the vile practices of the Saktas, then very prevalent in Bengal, was doubtless prompted by the best and purest of intentions; but his own doctrine of divine, though all too human, love was, like that of Vallabha, by no means free from corruptive tendencies, - yet, how far these tendencies have worked their way, who would say?

The principal seat of Sakta worship is the north-eastern part of India - Bengal, Assam and Behar.

The Sakta cult is, however, known to be especially prevalent - though apparently not in a very extreme form - amongst members of the very respectable Kayastha or writer caste of Bengal, and as these are largely employed as clerks and accountants in Upper India, there is reason to fear that their vicious practices are gradually being disseminated through them.

The forms in which she is worshipped in Bengal are of the latter category, viz.

There is a branch of the Bank of Bengal, and two newspapers are published - one in English and one in Burmese.

A considerable number of African and Amazonian parrots, Bengal parroquets, four species of white and rose crested cockatoos, and two species of crimson lories, remained at large for many years.

Merino sheep bred at the Cape of Good Hope have been found far better adapted for India than those imported from England; and while the Chinese variety of the Ailanthus silk-moth is quite hardy, the variety found in Bengal will only flourish in warm latitudes.

These and various other species of Corchorus are natives of Bengal, where they have been cultivated from very remote times for economic purposes, although there is reason to believe that the cultivation did not originate in the northern parts of India.

Throughout Bengal the name by which the plants when used as edible vegetables are recognized is nalita; when on the other hand they are spoken of as fibre-producers it is generally under the name pat.

The cultivation of C. capsularis is most prevalent in central and eastern Bengal, while in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, where, however, the area under cultivation is limited, C. olitorius is principally grown.

Here the cultivation of the plant extends from the Hugli through eastern and northern Bengal.

The climate of eastern and northern Bengal appears to be ideal for the growth of the plant.

The agricultural department of the government of Bengal are now fully alive to the importance of fostering the jute industry by showing conclusively that attention to scientific agriculture will make two maunds of jute grow where only one maund grew before.

The fibre is separated from the stalks by a process of retting similar to that for flax and hemp. In certain districts of Bengal it is the practice to stack the crop for a few days previous to retting in order to allow the leaves to dry and to drop off the stalks.

Although examples of both species present considerable variations in size, it is ascertained that the length of the largest-sized Bengal tiger may exceed that of any lion.

The tigers which inhabit hotter regions, as Bengal and the south Asiatic islands, have shorter and smoother hair, and are more richly coloured and distinctly striped than those of northern China and Siberia, in which the fur is longer, softer and lighter-coloured.

Fayrer's Royal Tiger of Bengal (1875) may complete this notice of the tiger's habits.

After a rapid course westwards down the whole length of the Assam valley, the Brahmaputra turns sharply to the south, spreading itself over the alluvial districts of the Bengal delta, and, after several changes of name, ends its course of 1800 m.

Below the confluence, the united stream flows in a south-westerly direction, forming the boundary between the districts of Lakhimpur and Darrang, situated on its northern bank, and those of Sibsagar and Nowgong on the south; and finally bisecting Kamrup, it crosses over the frontier of the province and passes into Bengal.

The older rocks are like those of Bengal, and the newer beds show no sign of either the Himalayan or the Burmese folding - on the top of the plateau they are nearly horizontal, but along the southern margin they are bent sharply downwards in a simple monoclinal fold.

The Sylhet traps near the southern margin are correlated with the Rajmahal traps of Bengal.

The production of this staple is carried on generally under the same conditions as in Bengal; but the times of sowing and reaping and the names given to the several crops vary much in different parts of the province.

The trans-frontier trade is insignificant; and most of it is conducted with the Bengal state of Hill Tippera.

The trade through Chittagong is increasing owing to the opening of the hill-section of the Assam-Bengal railway, which gives direct communication between the districts of Upper Assam and the port of Chittagong, and the incorporation of that port in the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.

The women form a striking contrast to the men; there is more of feminine beauty in them than is commonly seen in the women of Bengal, with a form and feature somewhat approaching the European.

Assam was the province of Bengal which remained most stubbornly outside the limits of the Mogul empire and of the Mahommedan polity in India.

Indeed, although frequently overrun by Mussulman armies, and its western districts annexed to the Mahommedan vice-royalty of Bengal, the province maintained an uncertain independence till its invasion by the Burmese towards the end of the 18th century, and its final cession to the British in 1826.

It seems to have been originally included, along with the greater part of north-eastern Bengal, in the old Hindu territory of Kamrup. Its early legends point to great religious revolutions between the rival rites of Krishna and Siva as a source of dynastic changes.

It is supposed that these kings were Buddhist and belonged to the Pal dynasty of Bengal.

As the Mahommedan power consolidated itself in Bengal, repeated expeditions were sent out against these river pirates of the northeast.

The following details will suffice for the history of a struggle in which no great political object was attained, and which left the Assamese still the same wild and piratical people as when their fleets of canoes first sallied forth against the Bengal delta.

In 1638, during the reign of the emperor Shah Jahan, the Assamese descended the Brahmaputra, and pillaged the country round the city of Dacca; they were expelled by the governor of Bengal, who retaliated upon the plunderers by ravaging Assam.

During the civil wars between the sons of Shah Jahan, the king of Assam renewed his predatory incursions into Bengal; upon the termination of the contest, Aurangzeb determined to avenge these repeated insults, and despatched a considerable force for the regular invasion of the Assamese territory (1660-1662).

After a period of successful administration and internal development, under the lieutenant-governor of Bengal, it was erected into a separate chief-commissionership in 1874.

In 1898 the southern Lushai hills were transferred from Bengal to Assam, and the north and south Lushai hills were amalgamated as a district of Assam, and placed under the superintendent of the Lushai hills.

In October 1905 the whole province of Assam was incorporated in the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.

His name was Mirza Mahommed, and he succeeded his grandfather Aliverdi Khan as nawab of Bengal on the 9th of April 1756.

Since October 1905 Chittagong has become the chief port of the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.