the storm the fields were parched up, and except in the beds of the rivers, scarce a blade of vegetation was to be seen: the clearness of the sky was not interrupted by a single cloud, but the atmosphere was loaded with dust, which was sufficient to render distant objects dim, as in a mist, and to make the sun appear dull and discoloured, till he attained a considerable elevation: a parching wind blew like a blast from a furnace, and heated wood, iron, and every other solid material, even in the shade; and immediately before the monsoon, this wind had been succeeded by still more sultry calms. But when the first violence of the storm is over, the whole earth is covered with a sudden but luxuriant verdure : the rivers are full and tranquil ; the air is pure and delicious; and the sky is varied and embellished with clouds. The effect of the change is visible on all the animal creation, and can only be imagined in Europe by supposing the depth of a dreary winter to start at once into all the freshness and brilliancy of Spring. From this time the rain falls at intervals for about a month, when it comes on again with great violence, and in July the rains are at their height: during the third month, they rather diminish, but are still heavy: and in September they gradually abate, and are often entirely suspended, till near the end of the month; when they depart amidst thunders and tempests as they

came.

Such is the monsoon in the greater part of India. It is not, however, without some diversity, the principal feature of which is

the delay in its commencement, and the diminution in the quantity of rain, as it recedes from the sea.

In the countries which are the subject of the present inquiry, the monsoon is felt with much less violence than in India, and is exhausted at no great distance from the sea, so that no trace of it can be perceived at Candahar. A remarkable exception to this rule is, however, to be observed. in the north-east of Afghaunistaun, which, although much further from the sea than Candahar, is subject to the monsoon, and what is equally extraordinary, receives it from the east.

These anomalies may perhaps be accounted for by the following considerations. It is to be observed, that the clouds are formed by the vapours of the Indian ocean, and are driven over the land by a wind from the southwest. Most part of the tract in which the kingdom of Caubul lies, is to leeward of Africa and Arabia, and receives only the vapours of the narrow sea between its southern shores andthe latter country, which are but of small extent, and are exhausted in the immediate neighbourhood of the coast. India lying further east, and beyond the shelter of Africa, the monsoon spreads over it without any obstruction. It is naturally

most severe near the sea from which it draws its supplies, and is exhausted after it has past over a great extent of land. For this reason, the rains are more or less plentiful in each country, according to its distance from the sea, except in those near high mountains, which arrest the clouds, and procure a larger supply of

r

ain for the neighbouring tracts, than would have fallen to their share, if the passage of the clouds had been unobstructed.

The obstacle presented to the clouds and winds by the mountains has another effect of no small importance. The south

west monsoon blows over the ocean in its natural direction; and, though it may experience some diversities after it reaches the land, its general course over India may still be said to be towards the north-east, till it is exhausted on the western and central parts of the peninsula. The provinces in the north-east receive the monsoon in a different manner the wind which brings the rains to that part of the continent, originally blows from the south-west, over the Bay of Bengal, till the mountains of Hemalleh, and those which join them from the south, stop its progress, and compel it to follow their course towards the north-west. The prevailing wind, therefore, in the region south-west of Hemalleh, is from the south-east, and it is from that quarter that our provinces in Bengal receive their rains. But when the wind has reached so far to the northwest as to meet with Hindoo Coosh, it is again opposed by that mountain, and turned off along its face towards the west, till it meets the projection of Hindoo Coosh and the range of Solimaun, which prevent its further progress in that direction, or at least compel it to part with the clouds with which it was loaded. The effect of the mountains in stopping the clouds borne by this wind, is different in different places. Near

the sea, where the clouds are still in a deep mass, part is discharged on the hills and the country beneath them, and part passes up to the north-west; but part makes its way over the first hills, and produces the rains in Tibet. In the latitude of Cashmeer, where the hills are considerably exhausted, this division is little perceived: the southern face of the hills and the country still farther south is watered; and a part of the clouds continue their progress to Afghaunistaun; but few make their way over the mountains, or reach the valley of Cashmeer. The clouds which pass on to Afghaunistaun are exhausted as they go: the rains become weaker and weaker, and at last are merely sufficient to water the mountains, without much affecting the plains at their base.

The above observations will explain, or at least connect the following facts. The south-west monsoon commences on the Malabar coast in May, and is there very violent; it is later and more moderate in Mysore; and the Coromandel coast, covered by the mountainous countries on its west, is entirely exempt from it. Further north, the monsoon begins early in June, and loses a good deal of its violence, except in the places influenced by the neighbourhood of the mountains or the sea, where the fall of water is very considerable. About Delly, it does not begin till the end of June, and the fall of rain is greatly inferior to what is felt at Calcutta or Bombay. In the north of the Punjaub, near the hills, it exceeds that of Delly; but, in the south of she Punjaub, distant

both

both from the sea and the hills, very little rain falls. The countries under the hills of Cashmeer, and those under Hindoo Coosh, (Pukhlee, Boonere, and Swaut) have all their share of the rains; but they diminish as we go west, and at Swaut are reduced to a month of clouds, with occasional showers. In the same month (the end of July and beginning of August) the monsoon appears in some clouds and showers at Pesnawer, and in the Bungush and Khuttuk countries. It is still less felt in the valley of the Caubul river, where it does not extend beyond Lughmaun; but in Bajour and Punjcora, under the southern projection, in the part of the Caufir country, which is situated on the top of the same projection, and in Teera, situated in the angle formed by Tukhti Solimaun and its eastern branches, the south-west monsoon is heavy, and forms the principal rains of the year. There is rain in this season in the country of the Jaujees and Torces, which probably is brought from the north by the eddy in the winds; but I have not information enough to enable me to conjecture whether that which falls in Bunnoo and the neighbouring countries is to be ascribed to this cause, or to the regular monsoon from the south-west.

The regular monsoon is felt as far west as the utmost boundary of Mekraun : it is not easy to fix its limits on the north-west with precision, but I have no accounts of it beyond a line drawn through the northern part of the table land of Kelaut and the northern parts of Shoraubuk, of Pisheen, and of Zhobe, to the source of the

On

Koorum; it falls, however, in very different quantities in the various countries south-east of that line. The clouds pass with little obstruction over Lower Sind, but rain more plentifully in Upper Sind and Domaun, where these rains, though not heavy, are the principal ones in the year. the sea-coast of Luss and Mekraun, on the other hand, they are arrested by the mountains, and the monsoon resembles that of India. In Seweestaun the monsoon is probably the same as in Upper Sind and Domaun: in Boree it is only about a month of cloudy and showery weather: it is probably less in Zhobe and in the other countries within the line it only appears in showers, more precarious as we advance towards the north.

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SPOTTED HYENA.

(From Lichtenstein's Travels in Southern Africa, Vol. II.) The spotted hyena, hyäna crocuta, is here called simply the wolf. It is a very common practice to call objects purely African by the name of any European object to which they have the nearest affinity. This animal is by far the most abundant of any among the beasts of prey in the colony; even in the chasms about the Table Mountain, there are so many, that the farms nearest to the Cape Town are often extremely annoyed by them; nay, in the year 1804, it once happened that a hyena came by night absolutely into the town itself, as far as the hospital. These animals keep, in winter, about the heights of the mountains,

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mountains, but in summer they frequent the marshy parts of the plains, which in that season are dry. Here they lurk among the high reeds to catch hares, viverrae, and gerboas, which in the hot season resort much to such spots for coolness, and to seek nourishment. The proprietors of the lands in the neighbourhood of the Cape Town make parties almost every year to hunt the hyenas, which are called wolfhuntings of some of these parties I have myself partaken. There are in the plains, about the town, many low spots overgrown with large reeds one of them is surrounded, and fire is set to the reeds in many places. When the animal becomes oppressed by the heat, and attempts to quit his retreat, the dogs which are stationed about fall upon him, and the sight of this combat forms the great amusement of the party. Besides the advantage of destroying these animals, another is derived from the reeds being burnt, that the ground always produces larger and stronger reeds the following year. Indeed, if the hyenas in the neighbourhood of the town are in some respects a great annoyance, they are not without their concomitant use they eat up the carrion, and diminish very much the thieving, mischievous apes, and the crafty genet-cats. It is seldom that we hear in this thickly inhabited country of sheep being killed by the hyenas, for they are by nature shy, and fly from mankind. No example is known of their having ever attacked a man; and often as I have myself met them by night, particularly between Constantia

and the Wynberg, I always found them take to flight immediately. A circumstance with regard to these animals, held by many to be a fable, I can from my own knowledge aver to be a fact; that they appear by night to be much larger, and of a brighter colour than they really are; they even appear wholly white. I do not by any means pretend to account for this phenomenon, but I have been myself convinced by my own eyes of its truth. The natural colour of the species is a dirty white with irregular black spots; its height is about three feet and a half, its length about four feet; its hair is stiff and bristly, but longer and thicker on the back than in any other part; the head is less pointed than that of the striped hyena, but is carried in the same way, bent down, with the neck arched; and the creature is characterised by the same evil and malignant eye. It is asserted of this species of hyena, as of that in the north of Africa, that it partakes of both sexes, or changes its sex: but this idea arises solely from the circumstance, that often when very young it is extremely difficult to determine of which sex it is. Mr. Frederick Kirsten had once the goodness to send me twin fœtuses, taken out of the body of a female hyena which was killed at his estate in the Wynberg. No difference whatever was to be discerned in their exterior, so that it was impossible to determine to which sex they belonged; when dissected, however, it was very evident that the one was a male, the other a female. They were both of a dark grey colour, had perfectly

perfectly the form and appearance of little puppies; and 1 observed, that, like them, they must be born blind.

ELAND ANTLEOPE.

(From the Same.)

This is the largest species of antelope, and forms the next gradation to the ox tribe: its length is commonly from seven to eight feet, and its height four feet, or somewhat more. The hair is of a light grey colour, and very thin, so that the skin, which is somewhat blackish, appears through. The whole form of the body and head is like that of the ox, only that it is more slender: its most striking distinction, however, is in the upright horns, which almost form a perpendicular with the forehead and nose: in the old animals the points even bend in a slight degree forwards. This is the only antelope that has the perfect tail of an ox. The boundary of the colony is the part principally inhabited by the elands; there they are sometimes found in groups of twenty or thirty together, but more commonly of about eight or ten, of which seldom more than one or two are males. They feed upon the same plants which, in inhabited parts, serve as food for the sheep and cattle. The aromatic properties of these plants seem highly salutary to all sorts of graminivorous animals. In cutting up the entrails of such as feed upon them, the odour of the plants in the stomach absolutely perfumes the air around. It is somewhat remarkable, however, that if

gathered dry, the same plants have scarcely any smell: their strength is only to be discovered by the taste. The eland runs very swiftly, nor could it be overtaken by a horse, if its powers of continuing the race were equal to its swiftness; but it is soon varied, and the peasants assert, that it is easier for a man to run down this animal than any other, even to hunt him to death. They add, as a very remarkable circumstance, that when killed in this way, the fat about the outer case of the heart, which, in many, weighs as much as five or six pounds, is always found in a liquefied state; and they consider this melting of the fat as the cause of the animal's death. The flavour of the eland's flesh is essentially the same as that of the ox; but it has a sort of accessary flavour, which becomes disagreeable if a man be constrained to feed upon the fresh-killed meat for many days together: when smoked it loses this flavour entirely.

THE OSTRICH.

(From the Same.)!

The habits of the ostrich are so remarkable, and have been so imperfectly described by travellers in general, that I cannot forbear bringing together here all the knowledge I acquired upon the subject both in this and subsequent journeys. I have noticed, on a former occasion, a large flock of ostriches which we met in the neighbourhood of Komberg. In that country the drought and heat sometimes compel these gi