146 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



prevent him from pursuing his business, whatever that may 

 be, but it keeps him for ever on his guard lest a chance touch 

 should knock down that cure-edifice which he has been 

 building up, maybe during many a patient month, round 

 that dreadful reel — a veritable torture-toy of Nature's. 



Though I don't claim for the west coast that it has a 

 monopoly of this sort of thing, the east coast is generally 

 more healthy, being drier, and not coming within the 

 influence of the south-west monsoon blowing from the vast 

 cauldron of the Indian Ocean. Great heat and damp com- 

 bined for long together bring about conditions favourable 

 to skin and other diseases. Doubtless the Madras side has 

 its own peculiarities and disadvantages, but of these I had 

 little personal experience. 



The rainfall on the southern portion of the west coast 

 would suffice to water the entire peninsula if evenly dis- 

 tributed. Superabundant here, totally lacking elsewhere, 

 could some man of science contrive a comprehensive system 

 of irrigation by which the water supply should be thus 

 equalised, he would serve his own and later generations 

 far better than by the most brilliant success in the art of 

 aviation, which is now absorbing so many of the keenest 

 intellects. 



For five years we were stationed at Coimbatore, a place 

 — inland and easterly — where two inches or two and a half 

 inches for the whole year were considered quite a good rain- 

 fall, the usual amount being under two. There, when we 

 scented the delicious fragrance of rain in the air, of wind 

 blowing over damp earth, and the first drops began to fall, 

 we literally stood out of doors to be sprinkled ; rejoicing, 

 too, in the knowledge of what that rain was about to do for 

 the land. 



In Calcutta, after a heavy shower, fish are sometimes 

 found strewn on the ground and upon the flat roofs, deposited 

 by rain-clouds which have drawn them up from swollen 



