purchased for an anna or two. One great reason why the pine-apple here is coarse and indifferent in flavour is, the little attention bestowed upon its culture by native gardeners. The crown is simply cut off, and struck into the soil again, and Nature is allowed to nurse it in her own way, without any assistance from man. Plantains we have in Bombay, all the year round. They are very good fried, and are a wholesome and nutritious fruit. Oranges and grapes do not appear to grow well on the island, and Poonah supplies the tables of the rich at Bombay with these universal favourites.

Towards the close of the monsoons the rains are light and mild, and bright sunshine intervenes between the showers. In general, the rains are more abundant in the first, than in the second half of the season. They pour down at Bombay in torrents for many hours together, sometimes for days at their commencement; after which, about sunset, the weather clears up, and very little rain falls during the night. As the wet and dry season, in this part of India, is not regulated by the position of the sun, but by the change in the trade winds, a greater abundance of rain falls here, than in those countries which lie without the tropics and are subject to what are called variable rains. In this case, the season of the rains depends entirely on the position of the sun; beginning before the sun reaches the zenith of a place, and continuing for some time after it has passed it. We find from observation, that countries lying near

the equator, are never for many days without rain, and that in those that are situated more than 5 deg. of latitude from the line, the seasons are generally distinctly marked.

From the rapid decomposition of vegetable matter, a sickly and trying season is now introduced at Bombay, and is much dreaded by Europeans residing at out-stations, or in the jungle. From the same cause, the atmosphere is filled with poisonous miasma, destructive to the health of the inhabitants; and agues and the jungle-fever spread amongst those that are exposed to the infected air. In the low districts, where the rains have been excessively heavy, many large tracts being flooded a foot or two deep, the exhalations load the atmosphere with a vapour so dense, as to obscure the stars at night. Dysentery, also, is now prevalent, more perhaps at this critical period than at any other; which may in a great measure be attributed to the abundance of green food. Soldiers are, on this account, forbidden to eat the fruit of the guava; that fruit being considered as very unwholesome, and as liable to produce this most distressing and dangerous disease. Great care is necessary, at this season, to guard against the sudden changes of temperature.

A great Hindoo festival is now celebrated, and known as cocoa-nut day. This holiday occurs on the 18th of August; at which time the season is supposed to open for traffic with the neighbouring coasts, and native boats may venture out to sea. It is a day of

unusual excitement and merriment; and all Bombay is abroad to see the fair and the processions that take place. Thousands from all parts of the island, assemble upon the sea-shore in Back Bay, even so far as Malabar Point, being accompanied by priests, jogees, gosaens, and bearers and attendants, who bring with them gilt cocoa-nuts, flowers, mimic temples, deities, packages of cinnabar, and all sorts of things to be presented as offerings to the ocean. Faquirs; and a host of other idle and worthless characters, mad with opium, bhoeng, and arrack, vary the amusements of the pleasure-seeking multitude, by acting the part of clowns in the most grotesque and ridiculous manner, with their faces, arms, and legs daubed with paint, and their bodies decked out with scraps of ragged finery. They make up a sort of procession, and go down to the sea, and cast in their gilt cocoa-nuts, which they try to make the unitiated in Hindoo mysteries and frauds believe, are of solid gold, but unfortunately they too often float. Temples, flowers, and tinsel ornaments, follow one another as propitiatory offerings; and every good Hindoo is now supposed to offer up a prayer to the effect, that when they venture once more to tempt the wave in their frail barks, success may attend their expeditions, and that they may never suffer shipwreck. After these vain ceremonies are over, the roads are once more lined with thousands who are making their way to the native village, where a grand fair and festival is going on in honour of the day. The night

is usually passed in drunkenness and rioting by the rabble portion; though the respectable Hindoo, after prostrating himself in the temple, or bathing in the sacred tank, returns home at an early hour to recount the many events witnessed to the female portion of his family; women being seldom allowed to participate in those pleasures so eagerly sought after by their selfish lords. It is a curious sight to stroll along the shore the day after this festival of cocoa-nuts, and find it covered for miles with heaps of painted wood, flowers, and tinsel, which the ocean, one would fancy, had indignantly cast back again upon the beach; after this day a few of the fool-hardy venture out on their short fishing excursions, though the storms of the last three months still continue unabated. The monsoon is not over until the end of September; and no sensible merchant will allow his vessel to go to sea until after the Elephanta gales have passed away; yet the Hindoo sailors look now upon shipwreck as impossible, as they feel a sort of conviction, after this ceremony, that old Father Ocean's anger has been appeased, and if any of them are lost through their religious belief, which is often the case, particularly during the dreadful hurricanes of the Elephanta, it is put down to the score of not having made a proper offering.

And now, for many weeks the country is rich and lovely in all the glories of its floral productions, and India may, in very truth, be called a land of sunshine and flowers. Perhaps there are few countries where

They enter Turbans are

flowers are more loved and thought of. into all Indian feasts and festivals! ornamented with bunches of the large white jessamine, tied up with a rose in the centre; flowers are strewed over the marriage-bed, and hung in wreaths round the necks of the favourite deities in all the temples and sacred places.

I have now brought the monsoons to a close, and have endeavoured to recall a few events connected with this remarkable feature of the Indian year. From their termination to February, the cold months occur, but they are hardly to be distinguished from the hot and dry season that follows. The coast of Bombay experiences the full effects of the south-west monsoon. In July the rain increases in quantity, and may be said to attain its maximum. Slowly decreasing in August, and more rapidly in September, it departs amidst terrific thunder-storms about the first or second week in October.