Chap. II.] 



CLIMATE. 



61 



it is covered with the descending torrent, flaslies into 

 it and disappears instantaneously ; but, when it strikes 

 a diier surface, in seeking better conductors, it often 

 opens a hollow like that formed by the explosion of 

 a shell, and frequently leaves behind it traces of vitri- 

 fication.^ In Ceylon, however, occurrences of this kind 

 are rare, and accidents are seldom recorded from light- 

 ihng, probably owing to the profusion of trees, and espe- 

 cially of coco-nut palms, wliich, when drenched with 

 rain, intercept the discharge, and conduct the electric 

 matter to the earth. Tlie rain at these periods excites 

 the astonishment of a European : it descends in almost 

 continuous streams, so close and so dense that the level 

 ground, unable to absorb it sufficiently fast, is covered 

 with one uniform sheet of water, and down the sides of 

 acchvities it rushes in a volume that wears channels in 

 the surface.^ For hours together, the noise of the 

 torrent, as it beats upon the trees and bursts upon the 

 roofs, flowing thence in rivulets along the ground, occa- 

 sions an uproar that drowns the ordinary voice, and 

 renders sleep impossible. 



This violence, however, seldom lasts more than an 

 hour or two, and gradually abates after intermittent 

 paroxysms, and a serenely clear sky supervenes. For 

 some days, heavy showers continue to fall at intervals 



1 See Dakayin's Naturalist'' s Voy- 

 age, cli. iii. for an account of those 

 vitrified siliceous tubes which are 

 fornied by lightning- entering loose 

 sand. Diu'ing a tliiuiderstorm which 

 passed over Galle, on the 16th May, 

 1854, the fortifications were shaken 

 by lightning, and an extraordinary 

 cavity was opened behind the re- 

 taining wall of the rampart, where a 

 hole, a yard in diameter, was earned 

 into the grovmd to the depth of 

 twenty feet, and two chambers, each 

 six feet in length, branched out on 

 either side at its extremity. 



- One morning on awaking at 

 Pusilawa, in the hills between Kandy 

 and Neuera-ellia, I was taken to see 



the effect of a few hours' rain, during 

 the night, on a macadamised road 

 which I had passed the evening be- 

 fore. There was no symptom of a 

 storm at simset, and the morning 

 was briglit and cloudless ; but be- 

 tween midnight and dawn such an 

 inundation had swept the highway 

 that in many places the metal had 

 been washed over the face of the 

 acclivity ; and in one spot where a 

 sudden bend forced the ton-ent to 

 impinge against the bank, it had 

 scooped out an excavation extending 

 to the centre of the high road, thir- 

 teen feet in diameter, and deep 

 enough to hold a carriaue and horses. 



