rica was India has caused a good deal of confusion. The natives of
North America were called Indians, and it was only long afterwards, in
fact quite lately, that people began to write and speak of the natives
of India as _Indians_. When it was printed in the newspapers that
Indians were fighting for the British Empire with the armies in
France, the use of the word _Indian_ seemed wrong to a great many
people; but it is now becoming so common that it will probably soon
seem quite right. When it is used with the old meaning we shall have
to say the "Indians of North America." Some people use the word
_Hindu_ to describe the natives of India; but this is not correct, as
only _some_ of the natives of India are Hindus, just as the name
_Hindustan_ (a Persian name meaning "land of the Hindus," as
_Afghanistan_ means "land of the Afghans"), which some old writers on
geography used for India, is really the name of one part of the land
round the river Ganges, where the language known as _Hindi_ is spoken.

The place-names of India given by natives of the many different races
which have lived in the land could fill a book with their stories
alone. We can only mention a few. The name of the great range of
mountains which runs across the north of the continent, the
_Himalayas_, means in Sanskrit, the oldest language used in India, the
"home of snow." _Bombay_ takes its name from _Mumba_, the name of a
goddess of an early tribe who occupied the district round Bombay.
_Calcutta_, which stretches over ground where there were formerly
several villages, takes its name from one of these. Its old form was
_Kalikuti_, which means the "ghauts," or passes, leading to the temple
of the goddess Kali.

In Australia, where a beginning of colonization was made through the
discoveries of Captain Cook towards the end of the eighteenth century,
the place-names were sometimes given from places at home, sometimes
after persons, but they have hardly the same romance as the early
American names.

_Botany Bay_ was the name chosen by Captain Cook in a moment of
enthusiasm for an inlet of New South Wales. He gave it this name
because of the great number of plants and flowers which grow there.

In Africa a good deal of history can be learned from the place-names.
Although the north of Africa had for many hundreds of years had its
part in the civilization of the countries round the Mediterranean Sea,
the greater part of Africa had remained an unexplored