In the north-east monsoon a condition the very opposite exists; the wind that then prevails is much drier, and the hills which it encounters being of lower altitude, the rains are carried further towards the interior, and whilst the weather is unsettled and stormy on the eastern shore, the western is comparatively exempt, and enjoys a calm and cloudless sky.[1] [Footnote 1: The mean of rain is, on the western side of the Dekkan, 80 inches, and on the eastern, 52.8.] In like manner the west coast of Ceylon presents a contrast with the east, both in the volume of rain in each of the respective monsoons, and in the influence which the same monsoon exerts simultaneously on the one side of the island and on the other.

The greatest quantity of rain falls on the south-western portion, in the month of May, when the wind from the Indian Ocean is intercepted, and its moisture condensed by the lofty mountain ranges, surrounding Adam's Peak.

The region principally affected by it stretches from Point-de-Galle, as far north as Putlam, and eastward till it includes the greater portion of the ancient Kandyan kingdom.

But the rains do not reach the opposite side of the island; whilst the west coast is deluged, the east is sometimes exhausted with dryness; and it not unfrequently happens that different aspects of the same mountain present at the same moment the opposite extremes of drought and moisture.[1] [Footnote 1: ADMIRAL FITZROY has described, in his _Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, the striking degree in which this simultaneous dissimilarity of climate is exhibited on opposite sides of the Galapagos Islands; one aspect exposed to the south being covered with verdure and freshened with moisture, whilst all others are barren and parched .-- Vol.

ii.p.