Winds 



100 EASTERN H I N D O O S T A K. 



point at the Kifhna headland, poffibly the Falura promontorw.m 

 of Ptolemy. 



I SHALL conclude the account of the Coromandel coaft, with 

 a brief remark on the winds which afFe6t the feas on both fides 

 of India. The S. W. monfoon begins on each fide in April-, 

 and blows with a ftcady gale till near the end of September^ 

 when ftorms and calms are alternate, attended with tremen- 

 dous thunder and lightning. The interval between that and 

 the north-eaftern monfoon is one month, when the w^inds are 

 moft irregular. The north-eaftern monfoon begins in the 

 middle of OBober, and continues till March., with the fame in- 

 terval as before. 



In the fouth-weft oi India the fouth-weftern monfoon is the 

 rainy feafon; on the north-eaftern coaft the north-eaftern mon- 

 foon is the feafon of wet. (See p. 89 of laft voL) The monfoons 

 are generally uftiered in by dreadful hurricanes ; mariners 

 therefore haften from the coafts before their approach. 



According to the Saracennic divifion, the feafons on this 

 coaft are the hot, the rainy, and the cold : the hot or dry is in 

 March, April, May, and June ; the greateft heat is from the 

 middle of M«^ to the middle of June. K north wind brings a 

 heat like what comes from the mouth of a furnace ; the fkin is 

 fcorched off the face, the feet burnt ; the very ftones and wood 

 are violently hot. The rainy feafon is during July, Augujl, Sep- 

 tember, and OBober \ it pours down in deluges, but not without 

 intermiffion ; there are hours in which the huftjandman can per- 

 form his bufinefs, he fows, and the rains fertilize the ground *. 



* Macfait's Geogr, p. 166. 



The 



