780 Lieut. Irwin s Memoir of Afghanistan. [Oct. 



rigorous winters and more sultry summers than others in similar 

 circumstances. The periods of the rains, the course of the winds, and 

 perhaps some other circumstances, are to be weighed when a theory 

 is to be given of the phenomena. I here content myself with detail- 

 ing facts as far as known, with occasional reference to probable causes. 

 49. From Delhi to Peshawur, by the royal road which conducts 

 through Lodhiana, Umrutsir, and Rohtak, the heat of the climate as 

 estimated by that of all the seasons of the year, generally speaking, 

 gradually diminishes. Even at Lodhiana, it is said, few nights are 

 known in the season of greatest sultriness which have the oppressive 

 heat of those sometimes experienced in our provinces. Whenever the 

 road conducts near the great northern mountains, unusual coolness is 

 experienced; but the neighbourhood of inferior hills seems in the sum- 

 mer at least to increase the heat. To this cause, and to the scantiness 

 of the summer rains, we may attribute the sultriness of Peshawur in 

 the midsummer. All the natives agreed in representing the summer 

 of 1809, which was partly passed there by the Embassy, as unusually 

 cool. Yet the heat by day, of the weather in May and part of 

 June was considerable, and was on the increase when we left that 

 place on the 12th of June. No relief is in ordinary years to be ex- 

 pected until the month of July, when either showers fall or the air is 

 cooled by winds from the east, in which quarter the rains have com- 

 menced. Hence June may be concluded a warmer, or at least as 

 warm a month as in Delhi. If the summer of 1809 be not supposed 

 altogether singular, the nights in Peshawur are seldom disagreeably 

 warm to those who avoid sleeping within the houses, and prefer the 

 terraces. The summer too is of later commencement, and declines 

 sooner than ours. The whole of the month of March may be exclud- 

 ed from it. The Hinduwee month Ussoo or Koonar, beginning on an 

 average on the 13th September, is there called the first-born of the 

 winter, an epithet it by no means deserves in our provinces, in which 

 September is often warmer than August; — add to this, that the winter 

 season is severer in Peshawur than here. Old persons remember a 

 fall of snow, which, however, they acknowledge instantly melted. 

 Frost is very frequently experienced in every season. On the whole 

 then, it cannot be doubted that the annual heat is less in Peshawur 

 than in any part of the Bengal provinces, except the skirts of the great 

 northern hills. In this and many other cases we should be deceived 

 were we to build conclusions on the proverbial expressions of the 

 country, without inquiring by whom, and on a comparison with what, 

 they are spoken. To the Afghans of the hills, Peshawur may seem 



