(ml Ihelr Causes. 245 



ntshed as it were with clouds, which become daily darker 

 and heavier, until they discharge themselves with much 

 thunder and lightning in a heavy shower of rain. After 

 this marked phenomenon the land winds set m imme- 

 diately with all the violence of which they are capable. 



Their commencement is generally in the lat'.er end of 

 April, or beginning of May, and their reign lasts to the 

 earlier days of June, during which period they generally 

 cx^rt their violence from ten or eleven o'clock in the morn- 

 ing until about three or four o'clock in the afternoon. 



In this season the atmosphere is commonly hazy and 

 thick, except that in the evenings and nights the sky is 

 serene and clear, provided the land winds do not continue 

 the whole day. 



The rising sun which portends a land wind day appears 

 of a fiery red, and as if involved in mist, which mist is 

 changed afterwards into clouds that lie heavy on the 

 Ghauts. 



The land wind of each day is almost always preceded 

 by a long calm, and immediately by a cloud of dust. 



Their diurnal violence is terminated along the coast about 

 two or three o'clock, by the setting in of the sea-breeze, 

 which wafts delight and health as far as its influence ex- 

 tends, which is not more than ten or twelve miles inland. 

 An abatement of their intensity from thence to the Ghauts 

 is all that can be hoped for. 



The sea-breeze regularly begins in the afternoon at one 

 or two o'clock, blowing pretty steadily until sunset, when 

 it dies away gradually, and at sunrise it is again perceptible, 

 though weakly. 



Wnen I say its influence is only felt ten miles inland, I 

 do not wish to be understood that it does not extend iur- 

 ttier : I mean only its powerful refreshing properties, which 

 it loses in proportion to the distance from the sea, and in 

 an inverse ratio to its strength, which is not great. In 

 general it arrives at thirty miles distance from the sea in 

 the evening, and is then only agreeable by the ventilation 

 it effectuates. 



In the country above the Ghauts, as in Mysore, the cast 

 wind prevails also in the afternoon, but from a period muc.li 

 earlier, orcotemporancous with the sea-breeze on the coast, 

 which renders it clear that this inland breeze either does 

 not extend further than to the Ghauts, or redly originates 

 there; a point which deserves to be ascertained, as another 

 phenomenon depends upon this circumstance. 

 '" ' ()3 Should 



