FROM AGRA TO OUJEIN. 45 



Teafon. Thefe are inferior in fize and flavour to the 

 former ; but a. fmgularity in this climate is that the 

 vine produces a fccond crop in the rainy feafon. This 

 however is acidulous, and much inferior to the lirft. 

 The other fruits are the mango, guava, plantain, me- 

 lon, and water melon, two fpecies of Annona, Jqua- 

 vioJa,^nAreticuIata ( Sherecfah ^nd J tahj, feveral varieties 

 of the orange and lime trees ; the Faljhh (Grewia aji- 

 at'ica) from which the natives make a moft refrefhing, 

 nightly acidulous fherbet; and as a rarity in a lew 

 gardens, the Car'ica Papaya. 



The foil in the vicinity of Oujein, and indeed over 

 the greateft part of the province of MaJava, is a black 

 vegetable mould ; which, in the rainy feafon, becomes 

 fo foft, that travelling is hardly practicable; on dry- 

 ing, it cracks in all dire6lions, and the fifiures are fo 

 wide and deep in many parts, by the road fide, that it 

 is dangerous for a traveller to go off the beaten track, 

 as a horfe getting his foot into one of thefe fiffures, 

 endangers his own limbs and the life of his rider. The 

 quantity of rain that falls in ordinary feafons is fo conli- 

 derable, and the ground fo retentive of moillure, that 

 wells are hardly ufed tor watering the fields. Thus a 

 great part of the labour, incident to cultivation in Hin- 

 dttjfan, is faved. But this very circumftance makes the 

 fuffering more fevere, upon a failure of the periodical 

 rains ; for the hufbandman, accufi.omed to depend on 

 the fpontaneous bounty of heaven, and unprovided 

 with wells in his fields, is with difficulty brought to 

 undertake the unufual labour of watering, elpecially as 

 it muft be preceded by that of digging the fource. 



Thr harveft, as in Hhulujlan^ is divided into two 

 periods, the Khereef zxid Ruhbee ; the former being cut 

 in September and O^ober, and the latter in March and 

 April. The kinds of grain cultivated here, taken in 

 the order of their ripening, aie a? follow : 



KHEREEF. 



