des towards its most southern
declination, and the wind acquires a more direct draught from the north;
passing over the Indian peninsula and almost totally digested of
humidity, it blows down the western coast of the island, and is known
there by the name of the "along-shore-wind." For a time its influence is
uncomfortable and its effects injurious both to health and vegetation:
it warps and rends furniture, dries up the surface of the earth, and
withers the delicate verdure which had sprung up during the prevalence
of the previous rains. These characteristics, however, subside towards
the end of the month, when the wind becomes somewhat variable with a
westerly tendency and occasional showers; and the heat of the day is
then partially compensated by the greater freshness of the nights. The
fall of rain within the month scarcely exceeds three inches.

[Sidenote:
Wind N.E.
Temperature, 24 hours:
Mean greatest 89 deg.
Mean least 71 deg.
Rain (inches) 2.1]

_February_ is dry and hot during the day, but the nights are cloudless
and cool, and the moonlight singularly agreeable. Rain is rare, and when
it occurs it falls in dashes, succeeded by damp and sultry calms. The
wind is unsteady and shifts from north-east to north-west, sometimes
failing entirely between noon and twilight. The quantity of rain is less
than in January, and the difference of temperature between day and night
is frequently as great as 15 deg. or 20 deg.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dr. MACVICAR, in a paper in the _Ceylon Miscellany_, July,
1843, recorded the results of some experiments, made near Colombo, as to
the daily variation of temperature and Its effects on cultivation, from
which it appeared that a register thermometer, exposed on a tuft of
grass in the cinnamon garden in a clear night and under the open sky, on
the 2nd of January, 1841, showed in the morning that it had been so low
as 52 deg., and when laid on the ground in the place in the sunshine on the
following day, it rose to upwards of 140 deg. Fahr.]

[Sidenote:
Wind N.E. to N.W.
Temperature, 24 hours:
Mean greatest 87.7 deg.
Mean least 73.1 deg.
Rain (inches) 2.1]

_March_.--In March the heat continues to increase, the earth receiving
more warmth than it radiates or parts with by evaporation. The day
becomes oppressive, the nights unrefreshing, the grass is withered and
brown, the earth hard and cleft, the lakes shrunk to shallows, and the
rivers evap