1857.] Notes on Jumeera Pat, in Sirgooja. 229 



room a little darkened the heat during the day was not very 

 oppressive. The thermometer in the house did not, I think, range 

 higher than 84° or 85°. A strong N. "W. and W. wind prevails 

 during the hot season. The rains set in at the end of May, 

 with thunder-storms from the N. "W". after which the prevailing 

 wind was from the S. and S. W. It very seldom blows from the 

 E. After the rains had set in there was very little variation in 

 the thermometer from that noted in the beginning of June ; and 

 until I left, in the middle of August, I never experienced that 

 " mugginess" which is usual in the plains at times during the rainy 

 seasou. Not having had a rain-guage, I am unable to speak as to 

 the quantity of water which fell, but I think that, although the rain 

 was at times very heavy, yet it was not so heavy or continuous as at 

 some of the stations in the Himalayas. Perhaps the few trees on 

 the " pafc" may account for many of the clouds passing over with- 

 out discharging their contents. At times there was a good deal of 

 mist. 



I enjoyed good health during the time I was there, and the sepoys 

 and office people, who had been with me from the commencement of 

 our residence there, were generally speaking healthy. Some cases 

 of fever occurred, but as the sepoys' lines and the arnlahs' houses 

 were only barely finished when the rains commenced, they were of 

 course damp, and to this may be attributed some of the cases of fever. 

 Had the houses been dry, and had the people been able to obtain a 

 regular supply of good food, I think that there would have been 

 less sickness. It was, however, very difficult to procure supplies of 

 good rice, doll, ghee, &c, as the Buniahs, who live in the villages 

 below, have a great dislike to coming up to the " pat" during the 

 rains, and my efforts to establish a bazaar failed. The natives of the 

 adjacent villages appear to be a very poor race, occupied in cultivat- 

 ing their land, from which they raise a coarse kind of rice (" go- 

 rah dhan") and "goondlee" (millet), &c. It was with difficulty that 

 they were induced to come and labour in building the lines. 



Prom the experience I have had during a residence of five mouths 

 (from the end of March until the middle of August 185G) at 

 Jumeera Pat, I should be inclined to pronounce favourably of the 

 climate. There is almost always a fine breeze blowing there, and in 



