of a few hours
overtops the river banks and spreads in inundations over every level
plain.

[Footnote 1: The lightnings of Ceylon are so remarkable, that in the
middle ages they were as well known to the Arabian seamen, who coasted
the island on their way to China, as in later times the storms that
infested the Cape of Good Hope were familiar to early navigators of
Portugal. In the _Mohit_ of SIDI ALI CHELEBI, translated by Von Hammer,
it is stated that to seamen, sailing from Diu to Malacca, "the sign of
Ceylon being near is continual lightning, be it accompanied by rain or
without rain; so that 'the lightning of Ceylon' is proverbial for a
liar!"--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ v. 465.]

All the phenomena of this explosion are stupendous: thunder, as we are
accustomed to be awed by it in Europe, affords but the faintest idea of
its overpowering grandeur in Ceylon, and its sublimity is infinitely
increased as it is faintly heard from the shore, resounding through
night and darkness over the gloomy sea. The lightning, when it touches
the earth where it is covered with the descending torrent, flashes into
it and disappears instantaneously; but, when it strikes a drier surface,
in seeking better conductors, it often opens a hollow like that formed
by the explosion of a shell, and frequently leaves behind it traces of
vitrification.[1] In Ceylon, however, occurrences of this kind are rare,
and accidents are seldom recorded from lightning, probably owing to the
profusion of trees, and especially of coco-nut palms, which, when
drenched with rain, intercept the discharge, and conduct the electric
matter to the earth. The rain at these periods excites the astonishment
of a European: it descends in almost continuous streams, so close and so
dense that the level ground, unable to absorb it sufficiently fast, is
covered with one uniform sheet of water, and down the sides of
acclivities it rushes in a volume that wears channels in the surface.[2]
For hours together, the noise of the torrent, as it beats upon the trees
and bursts upon the roofs, flowing thence in rivulets along the ground,
occasions an uproar that drowns the ordinary voice, and renders sleep
impossible.

[Footnote 1: See DARWIN'S _Naturalist's Voyage_, ch. iii. for an account
of those vitrified siliceous tubes which are formed by lightning
entering loose sand. During a thunderstorm which passed over Galle, on
the 16th May, 1854, the fortifications were shaken by li