POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY 241

sufficiently well sustained during the heat of the day, when
for many weary hours at a stretch he has to sit in a
heated atmosphere of physical and moral impurity to
decide cases on evidence which can only be slowly
extracted from the tangled mass of untruths which
envelop it. His evenings are given up to those social
functions which are rendered necessary by his position as
the local leader of European society in the station. As a
variation on his everyday home existence there comes the
district cold weather tour, when he makes acquaintance
with the farther limits of his kingdom and with people
who probably see him only once a year, and who have
amassed a pile of business for his attention that affects
their well-being for the next twelve months.
Camp life, with its opportunities for sport in the
jungles, and its sense of freedom and space in the open
plains, is the life that renders existence in India not only
endurable but delightful to Englishmen. It is this which
makes India attractive, and which fills the memory afterwards
 with lively and happy recollections, when the
business of the oven-hot «“kacheri” or the more pompous
functions of the Durbar have faded into obscurity, Such
is the real practical everyday government of India, and it
is only this outward and visible sign of it which is seen
and understood by the vast majority of the 284,000,000
souls who make up India’s population.
But besides the British Indian provinces there are
600,000 square miles of India included in the native states,
with a population of 55,000,000. The native states of
India are those states which are left to native rule. They
are in a sense feudatory states, not absolutely independent,
but with rulers exercising more or less autocratic authority,
subject to as little interference with their internal administration
 as circumstances will admit. It is not always,
indeed it is not often, that the ruling power thus constituted
 is so happily applied for the benefit of a people
and a country that the English Government can stand
aloof and leave the state to take care of its own concerns
tor any long period. As a rule circumstances will not
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