The Persian Gulf may be navigated by steam all the year, the Euphrates only eight months; it might, however, afford easy intercourse with eastern Asia, as it did in former times. The distance from Aleppo to Bombay by the Euphrates is 2870 miles, of which 2700, from Bir to Bombay, are by water; in the time of Queen Elizabeth this was the common route to India, and a fleet was then kept at Bir, expressly for that navigation. Six rivers of the first magnitude descend from the southern side of the table-land of eastern Asia and its mountain barriers, all different in origin, direction, and character, while they convey to the ocean a greater volume of water than all the rivers of the rest of the continent conjointly. Of these, the Indus, the double system of the Ganges, and Brahmapootra, and the three parallel rivers in the Indo-Chinese peninsula, water the plains of southern Asia; the great system of rivers that descend from the eastern terraces of the table-land irrigates the fertile lands of China; and lastly, the Siberian rivers, not inferior to any in magnitude, carry the waters of the Altaï and northern slope of the table-land to the Arctic Ocean. The hard-fought battles and splendid victories recently achieved by British valour over a bold and well-disciplined foe have added to the historical interest of the Indus and its tributary streams, now the boundaries of our Asiatic territories. The sources of the Indus were only ascertained in 1812; the Ladak, the largest branch of the Indus, has its origin in the snowy mountains of Karakorum; and the Shyook, which is the smaller stream, rises in the Kentese or Gangri range, a ridge parallel to the Himalaya, which extends along the table-land of Tibet, north and west of the sacred lake of Mánasarowar. These two streams join north-west of Ladak and form the Indus; the Sutlej, its principal tributary, springs from the lake of Rakas Tal, which communicates with that of Mánasarowar, both situated in a valley between the Himalaya and Gangri chain at the great elevation of 15,200 feet. These rivers, fed by streams of melted snow from the northern side of the Himalaya, both flow westward along the extensive longitudinal valley of western Tibet. The Sutlej breaks through the Himalaya about the 75th meridian, and traverses the whole breadth of the chain, in frightful chasms and clefts in the rocks, to the plains of the Punjab; the Indus, after continuing its course on the table-land through several degrees of longitude farther, descends near the junction of the Himalaya and the Hindoo Coosh, west of the valley of Cashmere, to the same plain. Three tributaries—the Jelum or Hydaspes, the Chenab or Acescines, and the Ravee or Hydraötes, all superior to the Rhone in size—flow from the southern face of the Himalaya, and with the Sutlej (the ancient Hyphasis) join the Indus before it reaches Mittun; hence the name Punjab, “the plain of the five rivers,” now one of the most valuable countries in the East.