of Napoleon, with the result that we had to fight between the years 1803 and 1805 the most widespread war which we have ever fought in India. Our generals were Lake and Wellesley. The most brilliant victory was that of Assaye, in the plateau country just north of Poona. There, with three thousand troops, Wellesley defeated Sindhia’s army of twenty thousand men, organised by French officers, and captured an artillery of a hundred guns. Peace was made with the conquered Marathas about the time when Trafalgar was fought, and it was stipulated that they were for the future to allow no European influence in their States except the British. There was a subsequent Maratha war, but the great war just referred to was the most serious crisis through which the British rule in India has had to pass, perhaps not even excepting the Mutiny of 1857. The Marathas are of Hindu religion, but the caste system is not with them carried to the extreme that prevails among other Hindus. They present, in fact, the nearest approach to a national caste. As we shall learn presently, Sindhia, Holkar, and the Gaikwar still rule great territories as Feudatory Princes, but Nagpur, the Bhonsla’s capital, is now the chief town of the Central Provinces of British India, and Poona, the capital of the Peshwa, is the seat of the Bombay Government during part of the year. [Sidenote: 32. Political Map of Bombay Province and Central India.] In contrast with the last map, showing the extent of the former Maratha Dominions, we have here a map of the central parts of India as they are to-day, with the Province of Bombay ruled directly by the British Government marked in red, and also the Central Provinces under direct British rule from Nagpur, but in addition it will be seen that in blue colour there are two patches of territory northeastward of Bombay, which bear the inscription Central India, a term to be carefully distinguished from the Central Provinces.