388 EASTERN BENGAL AND ASSAM
Bengal Government by a charge too great for a single administration,
and of the consequent deterioration in the standards of government,
notably in portions of Eastern Bengal. In December, 1903, the question
of the redistribution of the territories included in the Provinces of
Bengal and Assam was raised by the Government of India, and careful
consideration was given to the various schemes which were put forward
with the object of carrying out what was admitted on all hands to be a
very necessary measure of reform. It was recognized that there were
strong objections to depriving the people of Eastern Bengal of certain
privileges associated with the more developed forms of administration
in India, to which for many years they had been accustomed ; and
it was finally decided to form a Province administered by a Lieutenant-
Governor, with a Legislative Council, a Board of Revenue, and the
ordinary machinery of an important charge. The new Province was
constituted in October, 1905, and by the Bengal and Assam Laws Act
provision was made for the application of the laws in force in the terri-
tories affected by the change. The capital is DACCA CITY, with SH1L-
LONG as the summer sanitarium, and CHITTAGONG as'the seaport..
The Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam consists of the territories
formerly administered by the Chief Commissioner of Assam, to which
have been added the Dacca and Chittagong Divisions, with the Dis-
tricts of Rajshahi, Dinajpur; Jalpaiguri, Rangpur, Bogra, Pabna, and
Malda. It is bounded on the south by the Bay of Bengal; on the east
by the territories under the administration of the Lieutenant-Governor
of Burma and by hilly country inhabited by independent tribes; on the
north by the Himalayas; and on the west by the Madhumati river up
to the point where it breaks off from the Ganges, and thence by the
Ganges up to Sahibganj. From that point the boundary runs along
the western border of Malda, Dinajpur, and Jalpaiguri Districts to the
foot of the Himalayas.
The total area of the Province is 111,569 square miles, of which
12,542 square miles are included in the Native States of Hill Tippera
and Manipur. The present article contains but a brief account of the
natural features, economic conditions, and administrative machinery of
the new Province, and for further details reference should be made to
the articles on BENGAL and ASSAM.
The Province includes the lower portions of the chief river systems
of Northern and Eastern India, with a great variety of natural features
in different tracts. That part of the area transferred
Physical
aspects. from Bengal, which stretches from the foot-hills of the
.
Himalayas to the Padlna on the south, forms part of
the great Gangetic plain and is wholly alluvial, with the exception of a .
strip of submontane country in Jalpaiguri and of an elevated tract of
quasi-laterite soil, known as the BARIND, on the confines of the Districts
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