odoriferous blossoms the dark forests, and the Pandanus scents the morning breeze. The glittering orchids, like butterflies sporting in air, and the magnificent dendrobiums, give a charm to Eastern scenery, and delight the eye by the richness and beauty of their colours. The decaying monarch of the jungle, rearing his blighted form amidst the profusion of humbler shrubs, is not here an object fit only for melancholy contemplation. The past storms have wafted the seeds of various graceful parasitical plants, and every rent or cranny in its aged trunk displays some curiously-tinted blossoms, which scent from their floating tendrils the moist atmosphere of the cool woods. Flourishing, as it were, upon the wreck of nature, these epiphytes seize upon the withering branches so favourable to their growth, and again clothe them in new and delicious apparel. A lovely species of Trichozanthes hangs its vivid scarlet fruit from the topmost branches of the forest, but this climbing plant only expands its white and fringed flower during the silent hours of night. The anxious agriculturist, who cast a wistful eye over the arid plains, which, in case the expected rains should be abundant, were to supply many thousands with food, and who, with a desponding sigh, saw the skins half filled with water from the failing reservoirs, emptied into the little channels that conducted the precious fluid to the planted fields of promise, again has had his wants supplied; and again the valleys stand so thick with corn, that they laugh and sing. The rice T grounds which were prepared in March and April, ready to receive the seed in May, have long been reaped; and the exhausted corn-jars have again been replenished to satisfy the wants of those multitudes, who, while they live upon His gifts, refuse to give to God the glory. It is necessary to bear in mind, that in a climate like that of India, a constant succession of the most beautiful crops might be produced, if, for the purposes of irrigation, a sufficient and regular supply of water could be ensured. Two seed-crops are, however, generally secured in the year. The first is the natural result of the periodical rains, and is called, the khureef, or wet crop, which is sown with the rice in May and June, and reaped about the end of October; and the second, assisted by artificial means, and called the rubbee, or dry crop, sown about the first week in November, and reaped in March and April. Rice, cotton, indigo, and maize, are sown before the monsoons commence; and wheat, barley, oats, millet, and other crops of smaller seeds, reward the labourer at all seasons of the year. Thus, the stranger is often astonished to see sowing and reaping going on at the same time, in fields not far apart from one another; yet with all this seeming plenty, famine, in its most dreadful shapes, has frequently stalked through this double-harvest-bearing land. The rice, upon which a third part of the vast population is fed, has perished for want of water, or has been devoured by the locusts; and the cattle and the labourer have expired together. Among the many desolating famines in India, of which history has furnished us with accounts, that which occurred in Bengal, in 1770, is the most harassing to contemplate; several millions of human beings being said to have perished in it. Another famine, that thinned the north-west provinces, proved almost as fatal; and had not the hand of charity, in a great measure, averted the calamity, by relieving daily 80,000 individuals at Agra, it would have been impossible to have calculated the amount of deaths. Such disastrous occurrences are, however, rarer now than they were formerly the Indian husbandman having been taught the necessity of providing against the future, by storing up his corn in the seasons of plenty.* rains are always variable and uncertain; some districts in the interior being flooded, while others are barely visited by passing showers. In Bombay, rain to the depth of thirty-two inches has been known to fall, during the first twelve days of the south-west monsoon; this being the average fall of a whole year in England. The consequence is, on such occasions, that every road and field is flooded, and that the new The Corn in Guzerat is often stored up near the farmer's house, in large earthen jars, capable of holding the contents of three or four of our ordinary sacks. These jars are secured by a close-fitting lid, fastened down with clay or chunam, to prevent the ingress of the destructive white ants. Those which I first saw were arranged side by side under a shed, close by the owner's residence, and puzzled me much, before I could find out their use. The Arabian story of Ali-Baba, or the forty thieves, occurred to me, for each jar might easily have contained one, if not two, tall robbers, town, from its low swampy situation, suffers severely. The reader will perceive that I have not confined my description entirely to the Island of Bombay. Agricultural farming is carried on on a very small scale here, the land being poor, and naturally producing little, excepting cocoa-nut trees, and some trifling articles of fruit. The inhabitants are chiefly supplied with vegetables, poultry, sheep, &c., from Salsette; and the teeming plains of Guzerat furnish them with corn, which is conveyed by sea, as all land carriage is very expensive and slow, on account of the wretched roads, and miserable mode of conveyance adopted in India. The cool and agreeable north-east monsoon that succeeds that of the south-west, or rainy wind, continues to blow steadily to the end of February.— Dry and fair weather is now certain throughout this great peninsula, though the north-east monsoon brings with it rain on the eastern side of the Coromandel coast, from October to December. To March the north-east winds prevail, in which month they gradually cease altogether, and irregular veering winds, attended by hot blasts and excessive and relaxing days, may be expected until the commencement of May or June. We will now return to our recollections of this hot season in Bombay, and of matters therewith connected. The scene has changed: the sun so long obscured during the rainy months, or only peeping out between the dark masses of electric clouds, now bursts forth with redoubled power; and man begins to devise plans to meet the coming hot season, and to shade his dwelling as much as possible from its scorching rays. 'Tis early morn-day has just broken over the high. eastern ghauts, and the welcome streak of light spreads rapidly over the lofty canopy above us. You have taken your bath, and feel a longing desire to go forth into the open air, to ramble through the compound, or, in fact, to escape, in whatever direction, from your confined bungalow, the walls of which have scarcely thrown off the heat of the past day. If early abroad, it is no uncommon thing to find everything enveloped in a hot steaming vapour, that strongly recalls to the memory the artificial atmosphere of a close green-house, when the sun is full upon it. Such mornings in Bombay are called muggy, and are always the forerunners of extreme heat. You are prepared for this unhealthy evaporation, which is often very dense towards the close of this season, by putting on a flannel jacket; having the fear of rheumatism, or country-ague before your eyes; disorders from which, in consequence of imprudent exposure to the many atmospheric changes that assail the European in India, all, more or less, suffer severely. There is an indescribable sweetness in the morning at this hour; (six o'clock.) It is as if every leaf and flower, nay, the very earth itself, were exhaling some delicious perfume wherewith to refresh you, and offering up an early tribute to the Giver of all good for the past night's refreshing dews, which still glitter in diamond globules around you. Vege |