Now consider the Feudatory States. In the far south, from Cape Comorin along the west coast, we have the two little countries of Travancore and Cochin, ruled by Hindu Maharajas. They are far removed from all the greater problems of Indian Government, remote homes of the caste system in its most stringent form, and also, curiously, of a most ancient form of Christianity introduced long centuries ago from Nestorian sources in Western Asia. Then, north of the Nilgiri hills and the hill station of Ootacamund, is the State of Mysore, high on the plateau, completely surrounded by British territory of the Provinces of Madras, Bombay, and Coorg. The Maharaja here is a Hindu in religion, and the people are chiefly Hindu. Northward again, and still on the Deccan plateau, is the largest and most important native State of India, ruled from Hyderabad by the Nizam, a Musulman, who administers a country largely of Hindu religion. Then we have the two great groups of States, whose relations with the Empire are conducted by the Agencies of Central India and Rajputana. The most important of the Central Indian chiefs are Holkar and Sindhia, Marathas in a Hindi-speaking country, though in faith Hindus like their subjects. In Rajputana are the Rajput States of which we have spoken in this lecture. It will be observed that, with the small exceptions of Travancore and Cochin, all the States thus far enumerated lie inland and are surrounded by British territory directly administered. The remaining native states form a fringe along the northern and northwestern borders. To the northeast amid the foot hills of the Himalayas are in succession, from east to west, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal. Of these, Nepal stands outside the Indian Protectorate in a special relation of independent alliance with the British Government. In the far north is the state of Kashmir, whose centre is a beautiful valley, with a lake in its midst, deeply sunk amid the Himalayan ranges proper. A part of the foot hills on the one hand and a length of the Tibetan Indus on the other hand are also included within the territory ruled by the Maharaja of Kashmir. To the northwest are the Pathan and Baluchi hill tribes in relation with the North West Frontier Province and British Baluchistan. Such a survey as that which we have thus rapidly made gives perhaps the best idea of the complexity and vastness of the Indian Political System. The Indian Empire is in fact not a country but, as the inhabitants of the United States say of their own land, a sub-continent, and as regards everything but mere area the expression is far more true of India than of the United States, for in the United States a single race and a single religion are dominant, but in India a long history lives to this day in the most striking social contrasts, presenting all manner of problems which it will take generations to solve. --------------