SOME DIFFERENCES 83 



never really bracing. Hot dry winds are unknown, but in 

 the height of the wet season — which coincides with the dry 

 season of the Southern States — the moisture-laden air may 

 be likened to the vapour of a steam bath. While the rain 

 thunders on the roof at the rate of an inch per hour, inside 

 the house it may be perspiringly hot. After a fortnight's 

 rain the damp saturates everything. Neglected boots and 

 shoes grow a rich crop of mould, guns demand constant 

 attention to prevent rust, and clothes packed tight in chests 

 of drawers smell and feel damp. But the atmosphere is so 

 wholesome that ordinary precautions for the prevention of 

 sickness are generally neglected without any fear of ill 

 consequence. 



However sharply defined by reason of the personal 

 discomfort it inflicts, this steamy feature of the wet season 

 is no more a general characteristic than the hot winds are 

 of Victoria. Warm as the rains are, they bring to the air 

 coolness and refreshment. Clear, calm, bright days, days 

 of even and not high temperature, and of pure delight, 

 dovetail with the hot and steamy ones. The prolifigacy 

 of vegetation is a perpetual marvel ; the loveliness of the 

 land, the ineffable purity of the sky, the glorious tints of 

 the sea — green and gold at sunrise, silvery blue at noon, 

 purple, pink and lilac during the all too brief twilight, a 

 perpetual feast. 



For six months it may be said the prevailing wind is 

 the south-east, followed by gentle breezes from the east 

 and north-east. North-easters begin in September and are 

 intermittent until the beginning of the wet season. The 

 south-east monsoons are regular and consistent ; the north- 

 east, which precede the rainy monsoon, fitful and wayward, 

 never continuing long in one stay, and lasting but four out 

 of the twelve months. Rare is the wind from the west, 

 rarer from the south-west. North-easters are a pronounced 

 feature. They work up by diurnal and easy grades from 

 gentleness to strength, thunder coming as a climax. 

 After a succession of calm days and days of gentle breezes 

 from the east-south-east and east, the north-easter begins 



