130 
Harbour of Columbo. 
and a child much hurt. For the space of an hour this storm 
continued with the greatest fury I ever remember to have seen. 
Nor did the electric matter in the air seem at all exhausted 
by this explosion ; as, a few nights after, there was another 
storm almost equally severe : but although the hospital and se- 
veral private houses were struck by the lightning, providentially 
no lives were lost. 
During this season the variations of the climate are very 
great. The heavy rains, which predominate most by night, 
render the atmosphere at that time extremely chill and damp ; 
while the excessive heat of the sun is by day almost insup- 
portable. This, added to the very sudden transition from a 
warm clear day to cold and w^et weather, makes the climate 
more unhealthy at this season than during the hot weather. 
Bat I have observed these changes aifect the negroes much 
more than Europeans. 
The Sepoys, in particular, and other natives of the conti- 
nent of India, who come hither in the service of the European 
officers, or for the purposes of trade, are not at all able to 
endure the colds and damps occasioned by those violent rains, 
which continue much longer in Ceylon than on either the 
Malabar or Coromandel coasts ; and from these circumstances 
that island is often called the watering-pot of India^- During 
the rainy season, the Indians from the continent are e^remely 
subject to fluxes, dysenteries, and fevers. They are ajso af- 
flicted by another extraordinary disease, to which tliey apply 
as uncommon a cure. This disorder is known by the name 
of the Berry berry : it is occasioned by the low diet and bad 
water which the natives are accustomed to use ; and in part, 
perhaps, by the dampness of the climate in the wet season^ 
