ABSTRACT
The setting of Bombay forms as complete a contrast as can be imagined to that of Calcutta, its only rival as a commercial and industrial metropolis. The large-scale locational advantages of Bombay are obvious: centrality on the active littoral facing the southwest Asia portages revivified, after long eclipse by the Cape route, in 1869 the watersheds of which lead up to the Thai and Bhor Ghats. Around the island of Goa conditions are more deltaic than anywhere else on the Western Littoral, but both north and south the high ground comes down to the sea and the estuaries have a definitely ria aspect. Alone of the Western Littoral sub-regions, North Kanara is more essentially highland than lowland. Agriculture displays the usual features of the humid littoral: concentration on rice in the loamy alluvium, with coastal coconuts, and ragi and pulses on the laterites, where these are not given over to coarse grass and bush or secondary scrub-jungle.
