g air, and with in the circumjacent clouds. These last,
tending uniformly to the centre, compressed each other at a certain
distance from it, and, like the stones in an arch of masonry, prevented
each other's nearer approach. That island, however, does not experience
the vicissitude of land and sea breezes, being too small, and too lofty,
and situated in a latitude where the trade or perpetual winds prevail in
their utmost force. In sandy countries, the effect of the sun's rays
penetrating deeply, a more permanent heat is produced, the consequence of
which should be the longer continuance of the sea-breeze in the evening;
and agreeably to this supposition I have been informed that on the coast
of Coromandel it seldom dies away before ten at night. I shall only add
on this subject that the land-wind on Sumatra is cold, chilly, and damp;
an exposure to it is therefore dangerous to the health, and sleeping in
it almost certain death.

SOIL.

The soil of the western side of Sumatra may be spoken of generally as a
stiff, reddish clay, covered with a stratum or layer of black mould, of
no considerable depth. From this there springs a strong and perpetual
verdure of rank grass, brushwood, or timber-trees, according as the
country has remained a longer or shorter time undisturbed by the
consequences of population, which, being in most places extremely thin,
it follows that a great proportion of the island, and especially to the
southward, is an impervious forest.

UNEVENNESS OF SURFACE.

Along the western coast of the island the low country, or space of land
which extends from the seashore to the foot of the mountains, is
intersected and rendered uneven to a surprising degree by swamps whose
irregular and winding course may in some places be traced in a continual
chain for many miles till they discharge themselves either into the sea,
some neighbouring lake, or the fens that are so commonly found near the
banks of the larger rivers and receive their overflowings in the rainy
monsoons. The spots of land which these swamps encompass become so many
islands and peninsulas, sometimes flat at top, and often mere ridges;
having in some places a gentle declivity, and in others descending almost
perpendicularly to the depth of a hundred feet. In few parts of the
country of Bencoolen, or of the northern districts adjacent to it, could
a tolerably level space of four hundred yards square be marked out. I
have often, from an elevated s