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into account the play of natural climatic forces in India. We have traced the course of the sun through Cancer and Capricorn, and it will have been observed that he shines vertically twice as long over his "turning points" as over any other part of his ecliptic course. appears to stand still over these points, which are hence named the summer and winter solstices; and so it happens that all the lands lying about the 23rd degree north and south of the equator, under these sun stations, are desert lands. This is clearly seen in the northern hemisphere, where there is so much land, in the deserts of Rajputana, Scinde, Baluchistan, Persia, Arabia, in the Great Sahara of Africa, and Tierra Caliente of Mexico. In the southern hemisphere there is very little land along the solstitial line, and what exists is surrounded by the widest oceans; but Central Australia is a desert, and the Kalahari desert stretches across South Africa, and the Pampas through South America. India is, in fact, one of the blast furnaces in which the winds of the world are made, bearing with them everywhere fire and hail, snow and vapours, and the life-giving, purifying oxygen disengaged in ceaseless and immeasurable volumes from the perennially green primeval forests of the tropics. So placed at the very focus of her mightiest operations, man must stoop very humble to Nature if he would hope to understand her and subdue her to his purposes; and this, through three thousand years' experience, the patient, religious-minded Hindoo has learned to do; and it is certainly not for the farmers of our mild, equable climate to be too sure of being able to improve on Hindoo agriculture, or to insist too energetically on the superiority of their own doctrines and methods. The real wonder is that India does not suffer more from agricultural distress and famines, and the reason of its comparative exemption from them lies in the phenomena of the SouthWest Monsoon. But most precarious, from a merely scientific point of view, is the yearly prospect of the seasons in India between the Rajputana desert and the storm of rain it calls up from the vasty deep. It always comes; but one might every year repeat the question-"Will it come?" Any alteration in the condition of Rajputana by improved irrigation, or extended forest planting, or an increase of its desert area, might produce incalculable results of the most disastrous character. The destiny of India, seems, in fact, to hang in the balance between this desert and the deep sea. The Hindoos themselves have ever been keenly alive to those solar influences and atmospheric phenomena which so intimately affect their prosperity and happiness as an essentially agricultural people. The gods of the earlier Vedic Hindoos are but the vaguest impersonations of the heat and cold, rain and drought, whose effects on their crops and herds were at once felt; and in the Tri-murti or Triad of the later Brahminical Hindoos, the first place was still given to Agni or Fire, the second to Surya, the Sun, and the third to Vayu, the Wind, or Indra, the Firmament. They together constitute pre-eminently the god of gods of all the Hindoo pantheon.

The Western Ghats or Syhadri Mountains are the crest of the great wave of trap which covers all the Deccan from Gwalior and Nagpore to the Concans, over which it hangs like a rampart of Titans. This rampart lies almost at right angles to the South-West Monsoon, which beating on it through ages has worn it into its characteristic peaks

table-lands and spurs. On the eastern side, the slope of the trap wave being gradual, the Syhadri range presents spurs which sometimes stretch almost across the Deccan, in the plain of which they are at last lost. Thus the Deccan is divided between the open country and the hilly. The open country they call Desh, and the hilly tract between Poona and Sattara, or more properly the mountain valleys of the Neera, Kistna, and Yenna, they call the Mawulls, the cradle of Sivajee's dominion. South of the Poona, the capital of the Peishwas, stretches the Katruj Ghât spur and its ramifications, crowned by Sivajee's old strongholds, Poorundhur, Singhur, and Toorna; and south of it the plateau of Mander Deo, the water-parting of the Neera and Kistna; and beyond the latter spur rises the polypus-like mountain mass of Mahableshwur "the Great Strength of God"-on which sometimes six hundred inches of rain falls from June to September. Into the Concans the Ghâts fall abruptly in sheer precipices, often of two thousand feet, and short spurs of table-land and peaks, which cut up this narrow maritime region into a series of streamy valleys. On one of these spurs, in front of Mahableshwur, stands Sivajee's famous fortress of Pertabghur; and on another, only three hours distance by rail from Bombay, Lord Elphinstone founded the sanatorium of Matheran-"Top of the Jungle." Rising abruptly from almost the sea level, and standing like an advanced tower in front of the Ghâts, which seemed to end to the north-east in the stupendous scarp of Hurrychunderghur, it commands the most strikingly picturesque scenery, and, constantly cooled by the sea-breeze and screened by the Ghâts about Khandalla from the land wind, its vegetation is greener, nobler, and more varied than that of much higher summits of the Ghâts themselves. With the twin table mountain mass of Purbul it is the dominant land-mark in entering the harbour of Bombay, and it is in the sultry chasms and abysses between it and Purbul and Khandalla that the thunders of the Monsoon at Bombay are generated. Matheran is, in fact, the elevated table-land portion of one of the innumerable spurs of the Syhadri range which fall across the Concans into the sea, and generally to a ghât or pass through the main range running north and south. Thus the Matheran spur, which is continued westward in a line of blasted pumice peaks called Bhau Mulleng, before finally sinking into the Arabian sea, forms the bright little archipelago of palm islands which, joined together by the clay deposit of "The Flats" and the formation of shells heaped up by the waves of the South-West Monsoon along Back Bay, constitute the island of Bombay, with its sea groves of cocoa nut and wide, grassy esplanade, and glowing gardens of strange flowers; while at the other end of the spur, at Khandalla, forty miles eastward from Bombay, we have the deep cleft or gorge in the Syhadri barrier, called the "Bhore Ghât," the only pass between Bombay and Poona. Between these points the Matheran spur lies extended like a horse-shoe, thus determining the course of the Callian river, flowing under its northern declivities from the Bhore Ghât, past the ancient port of Callian, and the medieval port of Tannah, into Bombay Harbour, the great modern port of Western India. As in fact the Callian river silted up, the port had to be moved further and further seaward. The southern declivities of the hill overlook the courses of the Panwell and Nagotna rivers. From all

points one looks down, and back, and around on tremendous basaltic precipices, glittering water falls, wooded gorges, and irregular, rugged spurs; and above all the vast overhanging forest of Matheran, cool, green, and joyous with the song of birds, contrasted against the scarred and blackened ridge of Bhau Mulleng. Far below lie the misty plains of the Callian and Panwell rivers, and beyond, westward, the Arabian Sea, and Bombay, in all its magnificence and commercial activity, lying in it, like a minnow one might take up out of the water in the hollow of the hand; and eastward the loom-line of the Syhadri mountains, with the arches of the Bhore Ghât Railway incline just visible through the loom. Such is the romantic physical and historical theatre of the burst of the Monsoon in Western India.

The grand spectacle of the phenomenon will be best described by the following extracts from observations made at Matheran of the burst of the Monsoon of 1865. It began on Monday, June 6, at 3.30 p.m., with sullen thunder in the north-west, where the clouds had all day long been rolling up in towering electric piles. As the clouds thundered they moved slowly down through the Northern Concan, and gathered at 4 p.m. along the fantastically-jagged volcanic crests of Bhau Mulleng. All along Bhau Mulleng and northward, the sky and land were filled with lurid clouds and shadows, and thunder, lightning and rain, the Callian river flowing black as ink through a scene of the most striking desolation and gloom; while, all southward of this abrupt line of storm and shattered peaks and pinnacles, the whole country from Bombay to the Bhore Ghât was lighted up with a pure, serene light, which made it shine like the plains of Heaven. Every village, every hut, every road and jungle-track, even the bridge over the river at Chowk, came distinctly into view. The trees and groves looked magically green; and the light picked out the most hidden streams of water and made them glitter like threads of molten silver. The Panwell and Nagotna rivers shone like mirrors, and the Arabian Sea seemed ruled, so far as it could be distinguished from the sky, with lines of this vividly reflected sunshine. The contrast with the outer darkness around and beyond Bhau Mulleng was almost theatrical. Suddenly at 4.45, the storm rack poured down over Bhau Mulleng like a tumultuous sea, and rapidly moved into the profound valley between Matheran and Purbul, the wind blowing furiously, and the rain pouring in torrents, accompanied by the most awful peals of thunder and flashes of forked lightning. But when it had filled the valley the rain and the wind ceased and the storm stood still, and for one hour in that dead stillness (4.50 to 5.50 pm.) the thunder and the lightning, both in horizontal and perpendicular bolts, raged without a single moment's intermission. The thunder mostly rolled from end to end of the valley, but sometimes seemed to explode in its midst like a shell, and with a force as if it would burst the bonds of the surrounding hills. The detonations were instantaneous with the bolts. Once in the dreadful stillness the thunder came with the sound of a terrific rushing hiss, although not a breath of air stirred the while. At 6 p.m. the storm again moved and passed slowly southward over Purbul towards Nagotna, and another enchanting scene was opened in the southern Concan. Every hut and tree and stream became preternaturally clear, the inundated rice fields and rivers

flashing like steel, while fleecy clouds lay on every hillock and slowly crept up every ravine. Then, as the sun set behind Bombay, the whole scene became tinctured over with a glorious halo of soft golden light. The summits of the hills westward towards Tannah were lighted up with every hue of golden light, passing gradually into deep purple shadow, while the Callian river shone like burnished gold between them. It is impossible to describe the transient glory of this scene. Then the moon rose and illuminated the fog which had now gathered out of the ravines and off the hills and formed a street which stretched across the calm, clear heavens from north to south, while high above it in the south, but seeming to lie from east to west, stood the black, embattled stormrack towards Mahableshwur, belching forth flame and thunder the whole night long. The next day (Tuesday) passed off without a storm; but on Wednesday, the 8th, the sky was again filled with vast electrical cloud banks eastward towards the Bhore Ghât. At 2 p.m. muttering thunder was heard from this direction, when the sky at once became black and lurid. At half-past two the storm moved westward, travelling in the opposite direction to its course on the 6th, directly on Matheran. A mist went before it, thickening as it went, first into trailing clouds and then a dripping rain, muttering thunder all the while. At 3 p.m. the valley between Matheran and Purbul was filled with the storm, which now began to thunder in long, reverberating peals, the lightning illuminating the dense fog in which it seemed to be generated with extraordinary splendour. Heavy rain accompanied the illuminated fog until 3.45 p.m., when a light wind suddenly swept it all off westward towards Bombay, and showed that a heavy rain had fallen all over the country. At 4 p.m. the storm seemed concentrated over Bombay. But just then another dense fog, but luminous as magnesium light, again filled the valley between Matheran and Purbul, and the distant storm could no longer be watched; but the newspapers of the next day, when they were delivered at Matheran, told us that on the previous evening the Monsoon had burst in Bombay.

Another year the Monsoon was ushered in with a very picturesque phenomenon. About 2 p.m. masses of cloud came along the plain from Khandalla on Matheran, and as in succession they rounded the high basaltic scarp of Ghowk Point exchanged regular broadsides of lightning and thunder with it. The sky was perfectly clear all the time, and the salutation between these clouds and the mountain was repeated for a day or two before the great burst. It was exactly like the bombardment of a great casemated fortress by a fleet of ironclads in full sail. Once the Monsoon burst without thunder. The clear sky suddenly turned black and one universal solemn downpour began.

These appalling electric outbursts always end serenely. The storm clouds retreat like a drove of bellowing bulls, and their last echoes die away beyond the distant wall of mountains: the sun shines forth again in majesty; in every dell the delicious sound of running waters wakens life; the woods become vocal with the glad song of birds, and the heart of man is filled with an exalted joy in the contemplation of the sublime manifestations of that beneficent Power by which the face of Nature is renewed in perpetual youth and glory.

Sources and Growth of the English Language. (Continued from last month.)

Hollinshed, Raphael, born in the early part of the sixteenth century. Educated at one of the universities, and became chaplain to Thomas Burdett, a gentleman of Warwickshire. He was learned, and compiled much. In his work he mentions many authors. His work appeared in two volumes, folio, 1577, entitled "Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland," by R. H., with assistance. Some parts of the work were disapproved of by Elizabeth and Leicester, and were omitted in the subsequent editions. It became the popular history, and was the one which Shakspere most used in writing his historical plays.

Hood, Thomas, born 1799. He was early associated with literary men in conducting periodicals. His predominating traits are his intense human nature, witty incongruity of thought and expression, and exquisite pathos. Among his works are "The Song of the Shirt," "Eugene Aram," "The Bridge of Sighs," Whims and Oddities."

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Hume, David, born in 1711, of good Scotch family. He studied law, commerce, and metaphysics; and wrote the "History of England" to 1688, and "Treatise on Human Nature." He was for a time UnderSecretary of State.

James, G. P. R., born 1801, was a voluminous writer of novels referring to the middle ages, after the manner of Sir W. Scott.

Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, born 1522, was a leader of the Reformation party until the accession of Mary, when he fled into exile on the continent. He returned on the accession of Elizabeth, who promoted him to Salisbury, and he aided in revising the "Articles of Religion." His work, the "Apology for the Church of England," has always been highly esteemed as a literary effort.

Johnson, Samuel, son of a bookseller at Lichfield, was born 1709, and educated at Oxford. He then became schoolmaster in the provinces, but disgusted with this came to London as a literary hack, and published "London," in imitation of Juvenal's satire; "Life of Savage," the poet and personal friend of Johnson; "The Dictionary," "Vanity of Human Wishes" (a satire), "Irene" (a tragedy). He also founded two periodical papers, "The Rambler," and "Idler." He was also the author of "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." He was made a pensioner of government with £300 a year in 1760. His last important work was "Lives of the Poets." He lies buried in Westminster Abbey.

Keats, John, born in London 1796. He began to write verses at an early age. He died of consumption at Rome when 25 years old. He is the author of "Endymion" (severely criticised by the Edinburgh Review), "Hyperion," "Lamia," "Isabella, &c.," "Eve of St. Agnes." Lamb, Charles, born in London, 1775, was long a clerk in the India House. He wrote "Essays of Elia," 'Farewell to Tobacco," "Old Familiar Faces," &c.

Latimer, Hugh, Bishop of Worcester, born 1472, was one of the heads of the Reformation party. Objecting, however, to the "Six Articles," he gave up his See, and was imprisoned, until restored at the accession of Edward VI. He was imprisoned again by Mary, tried for heresy, and burnt with Ridley and Cranmer.