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and he is right. At the place I have referred to, which rests on the very edge 
of the chain of mountains south-east of the Brahmapootra, at an altitude of 
4,500 feet above the level of the sea, at a station called Cherra Poonjee, which 
is, as nearly as I can recollect, from 200 to 250 miles north of the Bay of 
Bengal, the rainfall is enormous. The intervening land between this mountain- 
chain and the sea is a level plain traversed by rivers, and over this comes 
the south-west monsoon, which has been gathering vapour from the Bay of 
Bengal, — not that portion of the monsoon which has passed over the Western 
Ghauts, but that which has escaped them, and which takes up the moisture 
evaporated from the Bay of Bengal. Passing over this level land it im- 
pinges at once on the mountain at a height of about 4,500 feet, and the 
result is that within a period of from five to six months the rainfall at the 
station I have mentioned is rarely ever less than 600 inches in amount. 
It happened that I spent my first year in India at that station, and I kept 
a rain-gauge, which recorded 610 inches. I somewhat doubted the result, 
as I had not then had any great experience with regard to rainfall, and I 
was inclined to mistrust my own reckoning ; but the figures were en- 
tirely confirmed by the observations of the late Professor Oldham, director 
of the geological survey, who, about a quaiter of a mile from me, 
made the rainfall within only a few inches of the total I had recorded ; 
I have no doubt that 600 inches is about the average rainfall at that 
particular station ; which I should say is, beyond all doubt, the greatest 
recorded. I believe there is no other part of the world that has ever 
been known to be nearly or even half so wet. Well, when you get further 
inland, only fifteen or twenty miles, or even less, and ascend some 
300, 400, or 500 feet, the rainfall drops at once from 600 to 200 
inches, showing that the difference is due to local conditions and 
circumstances. In the West of India, among the Western Ghauts, at 
a station called Mahabuleshwar, there is an average of from 250 to 
300 inches deposited by the south-west monsoon. Beyond these Ghauts 
there are great tracts of country that are not altogether rainless, but 
which are so dry that I dare say my friend General Maclagan will tell you 
that the rainfall is so small that, were it not supplemented by irrigation, of 
which, I know, he could tell you a great deal, there would be no crops and 
no cultivation, and, as a matter of course, not much animal life. Mr. 
Bateman has spoken of the works constructed in Ceylon and other parts of 
India for irrigation purposes. No doubt the Mahommedan Government of 
India under the Great Moguls carried out great works of irrigation ; 
and happily we have taken up the same subject, and are working out a 
great system that will be far more effective even than the older works that 
were referred to. It was about 1322 or 1823 that the British Government 
began to repair and re-establish the old works, and to construct a new 
system of irrigation ; and having made this commencement, the project 
has gone on, and is proceeding still, to the great advantage of enormous 
areas of country now under cultivation, which would otherwise have been 
a desert. There are many other points to which I might allude in 
