and their Causes. . 447 



stiff and painful. This is owing to the immediate volatili- 

 zation of all humids that irrigate our organs, and which, in 

 this particular one, probably gives rise to inflammations of 

 the eyes, so frequent at this time of the year*. 



The continuance of this wind causes pain in the bones, 

 and a general lassitude, in all that live; and, in some, pa- 

 ralytic or hemiplectic affections. Its sudden approach has, 

 besides, the dreadful effect of destroying men and animals 

 instantaneously. 



It is not very uncommon to see large kites or crows, as 

 they fly, drop down dead ; and smaller birds I have known 

 to die, or take refuge in houses, in such numbers, that a 

 very numerous family has used nothing else for their daily 

 meals than these victims of the inclemency of the season 

 and their inhospitality. In populous places it is also not 

 very uncommon to hear, that four or five people f have 

 died in the streets in the course of a day, in consequence of* 

 being taken unprepared. This happens especially at the first 

 setting in of those winds. 



The natives use no other means of securing themselves 

 against this wind but shutting up their houses, and bathing 

 in the morning and evening ; Europeans cool it through 

 wetted yatsj made of straw or grass, sometimes of the roots 

 of the wattie§, which, wetted, exhale a pleasant but faint 

 smell. It will be incredible to those that have never wit- 

 nessed it, but the evaporation is really so great, that several 

 people must be kept constantly throwing water upon the 

 tats (eight feet by four) in order to have the desired effect 

 of cooling a small room. 



Tt would be scarcely necessary to observe, if it were not 

 in contradiction to public opinion, that the cold produced 

 is not a peculiar property of the wind, but depends upon 

 the general principle, that all liquids passing into an aeri- 

 form state absorb heat, and cause immediately around them 



* The eye flics, so often supposed to occasion it, produce a transient and 

 sharp pain in the eye, but never, I believe, a lasting inflammation. 



It is generally thought infectious, and may be so by the interference of 

 the eye flies carrying the contagious matter from an affected eye to a sound 

 one. 



f Four people dropped down dead at Yanam, in the year 1797, an hour 

 after my arrival there from Masulipatam: and at Samulcotah tour or five 

 died the same day on the short road between that place and Peddapore: the 

 number of inhabitants of either of these places does not exceed, I believe, 

 five thousand. 



t The frame of them is made of bamboos in the form of the opening in 

 the house to be tatted, let it be door or window, which is then covered 

 with straw in the manner every one thinks best suited to retain the water 

 longest. 



§ AiidTopagonmuricatiim, 



g4 aoV 



