during which period
(three months or more) the sky is of the colour of copper, without the
shadow of a cloud to shield the earth from the fiery heat of the sun,
which has, in that time, scorched the earth and its inhabitants, stunted
vegetation, and even affected the very houses--renders the season when the
clouds pour out their welcome moisture a period which is looked forward to
with anxiety, and received with universal joy.

The smell of the earth after the first shower is more dearly loved than
the finest aromatics or the purest otta. Vegetation revives and human
nature exults in the favourable shower. As long as the novelty lasts, and
the benefit is sensibly felt, all seem to rejoice; but when the intervals
of clouds without rain occur, and send forth, as they separate, the bright
glare untempered by a passing breeze, poor weak human nature is too apt to
revolt against the season they cannot control, and sometimes a murmuring
voice is heard to cry out, 'Oh, when will the rainy season end!'

The thunder and lightning during the rainy season are beyond my ability to
describe. The loud peals of thunder roll for several minutes in succession,
magnificently, awfully grand. The lightning is proportionably vivid, yet
with fewer instances of conveying the electric fluid to houses than might
be expected when the combustible nature of the roofs is considered; the
chief of which are thatched with coarse dry grass. The casualties are by
no means frequent; and although trees surround most of the dwellings, yet
we seldom hear of any injury by lightning befalling them or their
habitations. Fiery meteors frequently fall; one within my recollection was
a superb phenomenon, and was visible for several seconds.

The shocks from earthquakes are frequently felt in the Upper Provinces of
India;[11] I was sensible of the motion on one occasion (rather a severe
one), for at least twenty seconds. The effect on me, however, was attended
with no inconvenience beyond a sensation of giddiness, as if on board ship
in a calm, when the vessel rolls from side to side.

At Kannoge, now little more than a village in population, between Cawnpore
and Futtyghur, I have rambled amongst the ruins of what formerly was an
immense city, but which was overturned by an earthquake some centuries
past. At the present period numerous relics of antiquity, as coins, jewels,
&c., are occasionally discovered, particularly after the rains, when the
torrents break d