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a few days: it commands a view of the river meandering through 
an extensive valley, and forming a number of islands, clothed with 
wood, and abounding in villages, cattle, fisheries, and agriculture: 
this beautiful landscape is bounded by verdant hills and lofty 
mountains. It was at sun-rise I first beheld this lovely scene, I 
seated myself under a mango-tree with my sketch-book, wonder- 
ing how any one could remain in a house, where nature was so 
lavish of her charms: but short are all rural pleasures between the 
tropics; situated under the immediate influence of the sun, in less 
than an hour the sky appeared as in a glow of fire; at that time I 
had never felt the effects of what are emphatically called the hoi- 
winds, nor had I experienced any thing to equal the heat of I3a- 
zagon: on the sea-coast the atmosphere is tempered by its breezes; 
but their refreshing influence does not extend to the interior di- 
stricts of the Concan, or Guzerat, where the hot winds generally 
prevail from the middle of March until the commencement of the 
rainy season; and Bombay, from its insular situation, is happily 
excluded from their effects. These scorching blasts begin about 
ten o’clock in the morning, and continue till sun-set: by noon, the 
black wood furniture becomes like healed metal, the water more 
than tepid, and the atmosphere so parching, that few Europeans 
could long support it, if the delicious coolness of the nights did 
not in a great degree alleviate the heat of the day. In the house 
at Dazagon, Farhenheit’s thermometer, at sun-rise, seldom exceeded 
eighty degrees; at noon on the same day, it often rose to one hun- 
dred and twelve. The European convalescents sent from the 
hospitals at Bombay for the benefit of the hot-wells, complain 
much of lassitude, diminished appetite, and impaired digestion, 
2 c 
