With a firm adherence to temperance in the enjoyment of stimulants, and moderation in the pleasures of the table, with attention to exercise and frequent resort to the bath, it may be confidently asserted that health in Ceylon is as capable of preservation and life as susceptible of enjoyment, as in any country within the tropics.
_Exposure_ .-- Prudence and foresight are, however, as indispensable there as in any other climate to escape well-understood risks.

Catarrhs and rheumatism are as likely to follow needless exposure to the withering "along-shore wind" of the winter months in Ceylon[1], as they are traceable to unwisely confronting the east winds of March in Great Britain; and during the alternation, from the sluggish heat which precedes the monsoon, to the moist and chill vapours that follow the descent of the rains, intestinal disorders, fevers, and liver complaints are not more characteristic of an Indian monsoon than an English autumn, and are equally amenable to those precautions by which liability may be diminished in either place.
[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p.57.It is an agreeable characteristic of the climate of Ceylon, that sun-stroke, which is so common even in the northern portions of India, is almost unknown in the island.

Sportsmen are out all day long in the hottest weather, a practice which would be thought more than hazardous in Oude or the north-west provinces.

Perhaps an explanation of this may be found in the difference in moisture in the two atmospheres, which may modify the degrees of evaporation; but the inquiry is a curious one.

It is becoming better understood in the army that active service, and even a moderate exposure to the solar rays (_always guarding them from the head_,) are conducive rather than injurious to health in the tropics.