The great change is heralded as before by oppressive calms, lurid skies, vivid lightning, bursts of thunder, and tumultuous rain.
But at this change of the monsoon the atmospheric disturbance is less striking than in May; the previous temperature is lower, the moisture of the air is more reduced, and the change is less agreeably perceptible from the southern breeze to the dry and parching wind from the north.
[Sidenote: Wind N.E.
Temperature 24 hours: Mean greatest 85 deg.
Mean least 70 deg.
Rain (inches) 4.3] _December_ .-- In December the sun attains to its greatest southern declination, and the wind setting steadily from the northeast brings with it light but frequent rains from Bay Of Bengal.

The thermometer shows a maximum temperature of 85 deg.

with a minimum of 70 deg.; the morning and the afternoon are again enjoyable in the open air, but at night every lattice that faces the north is cautiously closed against the treacherous "along-shore-wind." Notwithstanding the violence and volume in which the rains have been here described as descending during the paroxysms of the monsoons, the total rain-fall in Ceylon is considerably less than on the continent of Throughout Hindustan the annual mean is 117.5 and on some parts on the Malabar coast, upwards of 300 inches have fallen in a single year[1]; whereas the in Ceylon rarely exceeds 80, and the highest registered in an exceptional season was 120 inches.
[Footnote 1: At Mahabaleshwar, in the Western Ghauts, the annual mean is 254 inches, and at Uttray Mullay; in Malabar, 263; whilst at Bengal it is 209 inches at Sylhet; and 610.3 at Cherraponga.] The distribution is of course unequal, both as to time and localities, and in those districts where the fall is most considerable, the number of rainless days is the greatest.[1] An idea may be formed of the deluge that descends in Colombo during the change of the monsoon, from the fact that out of 72.4 inches, the annual average there, no less than 20.7 inches fall in April and May, and 21.9 in October and November, a quantity one-third greater than the total rain in England throughout an entire year.
[Footnote 1: The average number of days on which rain fell at Colombo in the years 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835, was as follows:-- Days.
In January 3 February 4 March 6 April 11 May 13 June 13 July 8 August 10 September 14 October 17 November 11 December 8 -- - Total 118] In one important particular the phenomenon, of the Dekkan affords an analogy for that which presents itself in Ceylon.

During the south-west monsoon the clouds are driven against the lofty chain of mountains that overhang the western shore of the peninsula, and their condensed vapour descends there in copious showers.

The winds, thus early robbed of their moisture, carry but little rain to the plains of the interior, and whilst Malabar is saturated by daily showers, the sky of Coromandel is clear and serene.