Excerpt from Geography of Greater Britain India Canada Australia Africa the West Indies
India, or Hindostan, has been called the brightest jewel of the British crown. The people of such a tiny island as ours may well be proud to have conquered so great a country. Our other possessions beyond the sea were mostly won from small tribes of ignorant savages, too much occupied in fighting each other to join in defending themselves against the swords and guns, the ships and horses, that made them think Europeans supernatural beings. But India, when we first knew it, was filled with many millions of people, in some ways as learned and civilized as ourselves, among whom we found powerful rulers, large armies, and magnificent cities.
The inhabitants of our eastern empire are now nearly three hundred millions - roughly speaking, eight times as many people as there are in the British Islands, and about one-fifth of the whole population of the world. Yet it took hardly more than a century for a few Englishmen to master this region, nearly as large as Europe.
It is all the more glory to our fathers to have won such victories so far from home.
Up to nearly our own day, the journey to India was a matter of months.
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