India awakens within us such a sense of vastness and distance, and so strongly appeals to our imagination, that one is much tempted to write at length that others may enter into our enjoyment of a country and a people so great, so picturesque, and so remarkable. It was this feeling which prompted me, while in India, to write a series of letters to the _Liverpool Daily Post_. These letters are too long to be reproduced here, and I must, therefore, confine myself to a brief résumé of our impressions of India. The first thing which almost staggers the imagination is the extent of our Indian Empire. [Illustration: THE DEAD CITY OF FATEHPUR SIKRI, BUILT BY AKBAR, AND WHICH FOR 300 YEARS HAS REMAINED DESERTED.] [Illustration: THE PILGRIM CITY OF BENARES ON THE GANGES.] Landing in Ceylon, which lies only seven degrees north of the Equator, we were surrounded by the most profuse and luxuriant tropical vegetation; and the vertical rays of the sun kept us indoors, except in the early morning and late evening. A few days later we had passed through Calcutta and found ourselves at Darjeeling, with snow lying all about us, and with the mighty snow-ranges of the Himalayas piled up before us, and yet we had not left India. We were surrounded by 300,000,000 of people belonging to six hundred nationalities, and speaking as many languages, differing not only in nationality and in language, but in religion, in civilisation, and in their manners and customs, and all this multitude of peoples, nations, and languages were comprised in "India." Nothing brings this great diversity among the people of India more vividly before the mind than a walk through one of the main streets of Calcutta. Here one meets with natives from every part, some arrayed in simple white garments, but others clothed in gorgeous apparel. Their costumes of silk and satin are radiant with a dazzling wealth of colour, every nationality having its distinctive dress, the Bengalese, the Pathan, the Sikh, the Nepaulese, the Tamils, and the Mahrattas, and all walk with that dignified bearing which proclaims them to be members of a princely class. Our wonder increases. How comes it that this multitude of peoples, these descendants of martial races, live together in peace and amity? The plains of Delhi, which for 2,000 years were the arena of perpetual conflict as nations were made and unmade, proclaim the warlike character of the people, the intensity of their national hatred, and the ferocity of their bloody feuds. They are now held together in peaceful union by legions of British troops--there are but 70,000 British troops in all India--and probably 250,000,000 out of the 300,000,000 people in India have never seen a British soldier.