bility, I should never again visit this beautiful island of the sea; and as we rowed slowly over the star-lit waters towards Bombay, there was something, at this witching hour, so calm and tranquil in the scene around us, that conversation soon ceased altogether, and each one among us seemed occupied by his own musings. We found our friends in the Fort anxiously awaiting our return; and after an hour or two spent very agreeably, I bade adieu to many who had contributed much to my happiness, both on this memorable day, and on former occasions. A sorrowful feeling oppressed me; for I had a painful conviction that some of us would never meet again in this world—a foreboding which has been realized ; but

"There are tones that will haunt us, though lonely

Our path be, o'er mountain and sea;

There are looks that will part from us only

When memory ceases to be."

142

AFTER THE RAINS.

CHAPTER V.

THE rainy season has passed away; and the fearful storms that lately swept over the dark waters of the Indian Ocean, and hurled its billows with such terrific force upon the coast, have gradually subsided into a peaceful calm.

'Mercy's voice has hushed the blast,"

and the low murmuring of the morning or evening breeze is alone heard amidst those forests, which, but a short time ago, bowed their sturdy limbs and pathless jungles to the raging of the monsoon. The scared

jackal, that fled before this dreaded enemy, the only

invader of his profound solitude, returns again to his ancient haunts, and "seeks his food from God." The luxuriant vegetation, which so suddenly clothed the surface of earth, painting the landscape with myriads of glorious blossoms of every hue, and which sprang suddenly into life during that remarkable

BRILLIANT FLOWERS.

143

period, is now fast drooping and dying around us; and the large crimson flowers of the lofty cotton-tree (Bombax ceiba) have vanished, and given place to the bursting capsule with its silky treasure. Innumerable wild annuals have gone through the many stages of their short existence, and now wait the returning rains, to bid them once more spring forth, welcome to man as the voice of the turtle heard in the land.

But in this fair country, where summer and winter can scarcely be distinguished from each other, and where the leaves of many trees are only shed to give place to new ones, the fading of the ephemeral visitors which perfect an Eastern landscape are not regretted, as are, among ourselves, the productions of an English summer, when autumn shows her "sere and yellow leaf." The gorgeous palms, which Linnæus has justly entitled "the princes of the vegetable world," still rear their crowned pillars above us; and the peepul, the palmyra, and the banyan, cast their grateful shadows over the scorching glades. Nor have flowers forsaken us.

In moist districts in the interior, the Decannabean (butea superba) lights up with its glowing scarlet blossoms the dark forests, and the odoriferous pandanus scents the morning breeze. The glittering orchids, like butterflies sporting in air, and the magnificent dendrobiums, give a charm to

144

PARASITICAL PLANTS.

Eastern scenery, and delight the eye by the richness and beauty of their colours. The decaying monarch of the jungle, rearing his blighted form amidst the profusion of humbler shrubs, is not here an object fit only for melancholy contemplation. The past storms have wafted the seeds of various graceful parasitical plants, and every rent or cranny in its aged trunk displays some curiously-tinted blossoms, which scent from their floating tendrils the moist atmosphere of the cool woods. Flourishing, as it were, upon the wreck of nature, these epiphytes seize upon the withering branches so favourable to their growth, and again clothe them in new and delicious apparel. A lovely species of trichozanthes hangs its vivid scarlet fruit from the topmost branches of the forest, but this climbing plant only expands its white and fringed flower during the silent hours of night.

The anxious agriculturist, who cast a wistful eye over the arid plains, which, in case the expected rains should be abundant, were to supply many thousands with food, and who, with a desponding sigh, saw the skins, half filled with water from the failing reservoirs, emptied into the little channels that conducted the precious fluid to the planted fields of promise, again has had his wants supplied; and again the valleys stand so thick with corn, that they laugh and

SOWING AND REAPING.

145

sing. The rice grounds, which were prepared in March and April, ready to receive the seed in May, have long been reaped, and the exhausted corn-jars have again been replenished, to satisfy the wants of those multitudes who, while they live upon His gifts, refuse to give God the glory.

It is necessary to bear in mind, that in a climate like that of India, a constant succession of the most beautiful crops might be produced, if, for the purposes of irrigation, a sufficient and regular supply of water could be insured. Two seed-crops are, however, generally secured in the year. The first is the natural result of the periodical rains, and is called the khureef, or wet crop, which is sown with the rice in May and June, and reaped about the end of October; and the second, assisted by artificial means, and called the rubbee, or dry crop, sown about the first week in November, and reaped in March and April.

Rice, cotton, indigo, and maize, are sown before the monsoons commence; and wheat, barley, oats, millet, and other crops of smaller seeds, reward the labourer at all seasons of the year. Thus, the stranger is often astonished to see sowing and reaping going on at the same time, in fields not far apart from one another; yet, with all this seeming plenty, famine, in its most dreadful shapes, has frequently

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