16 FOOTE : SOUTH MAIIRATTA COUNTRY. 



By the middle of October the north-east monsoon is looked for, 



but in many seasons it does not burst over the 

 North-east monsoon. 



country till the end of the month, or even till the 



middle of November. As a rule, it is much milder intheRaichur Doab 



than further south, and occasionally it fails almost entirely, and thereby 



causes a water-famine in the higher parts of the Doab. The rainfall of 



the north-east monsoon is not much reckoned upon further west than the 



Doab, thoug;h in good seasons the Kaladgi districts and the eastern parts 



of Dharwar district often receive a very welcome supplement to their 



south-west monsoon water-supply. In exceptional seasons such as 1874, 



the rains extend to the Western Ghats, and the Krishna and Tungabha- 



dra come down in heavy freshets. 



The climate of the South Mahratta Country and the South-Western 

 Deccan is decidedly cooler than that of the South-Eastern Deccan, as might 

 be expected from its greater elevation. The great difference of temperature 

 between the cold nights and hot days renders it, however, quite as trying 

 a climate to those exposed to its vicissitudes. The westerly wind which 

 prevails during the hot weather does not acquire the character of a 

 fierce hot wind till it reaches the bare plains lying eastward of Bijapur 

 and in the western parts of the Doab. It is in passing over those 

 treeless tracts that it acquires the fierce heat with which it blows in the 

 districts traversed by the lower Krishna valley, and which can be most 

 aptly compared to the blast from a furnace-mouth. 



On the Ghats the climate is a damp one, even during the hot 



weather. Soon after noon, a thick, misty haze 



The Ghat climate es- , . . « • ,i n i • • j ii 



sentially damp. begms to torm m the valleys, and, nsmg gradually, 



renders distant objects very indistinct and hides 



all the details of the landscape. It is not, however, without a beauty 



of its own. This haze is often so thick over the Konkan, that the disc 



of the setting sun is greatly distorted. Even in the early morning 



the atmosphere is hardly ever so clear as it generally is on the mountains 



further south in the peninsula. 



( 16 ) 



