South- West Monsoon. 49 



general tendency to fever, dysentery, &c., among 

 the natives, whose meagre diet and consequent 

 comparatively weakly physique probably account 

 for their being more subject to such influences 

 than the European, who is not only naturally more 

 robust, but fortified against them by being better 

 fed, clothed, and housed. 



Early in June, or earlier in some parts, heavy 

 masses of cloud begin to gather on the south-west 

 horizon, fitful squalls arrive from the same quarter, 

 and finally a day or two of driving mist, accom- 

 panied by angry thunder crashes, usher in the 

 " burst of the monsoon." This is the great at- 

 mospheric phenomenon of the eastern tropics. 

 Sheets of rain fall with a vehemence and persis- 

 tency unknown in temperate latitudes : the wind 

 roars day after day through the forest, the sky is 

 overcast, while the sun, as if exhausted with his 

 previous exertions, appears to have made up his 

 mind to withdraw permanently behind the inter- 

 minable masses of rolling vapour the climate in 

 fact is completely metamorphosed. With short 

 " breaks " of fine weather, like angels' visits, few 

 and far between, this state of things is continued 

 till August, when pleasant peeps of sunshine make 

 animated nature smile once more after the beneficial, 

 though to all appearance stern ordeal it has passed 

 through. Towards the end of August the weather 



E 



