The aspect of the country at that season is very dreary. Some trees retain their freshness in the hottest weather; but not a blade of green grass is to be seen, and the ground is scorched, scarred, and baked, as if it had been turned into a desert.
THE RAINY SEASON.
A marvellous change is produced by the first heavy fall of rain. After stifling heat for some days, the rays of the sun beating with a fierceness which threatens to burn up all nature, and which drives the birds for shelter to the thickest foliage of the trees, the clouds gather, the thunder rolls, peal quickly succeeding peal, the lightning flashes incessantly, and then, after some heavy showers, there comes down for two or three days, with very little intermission, such torrents that it looks as if we were to be visited with a deluge. Within a week all nature is transformed. The parched earth gives way to the richest green. We in our country say in very propitious weather that we see things grow; but in India vegetation takes such a bound as it never does in our temperate climate. Immediately after the downpour of rain, the sun comes out in all its strength; and, under the action of heat and moisture, vegetation progresses marvellously. The fields are quickly ploughed, the seed, for which moisture and great heat is required, is sown, and in the course of three or four weeks they are far above the ground. Within three months the harvest of the rainy season, furnishing the people with rice, maize, and other grains, which furnish the principal food of the people, is gathered in.
The rainy season is productive in another and less pleasant manner. It is as favourable to insect life as it is to vegetable life. Flying white ants, flying bugs, and other unwelcome visitors of the same order, come out in thousands. At night, if the doors be open the white ants make for the lamps in such numbers that they are extinguished by them, and the room is in the morning found strewed with their dead. It requires a torpid temperament to remain calm under this visitation. All dislike it, and some find it a grievous trial. As the rainy season advances, the trouble abates, and by the time the cold weather sets in the ordinary house-fly by day and the mosquito by night alone remain to buzz about us. The mosquito has rightly got the first place among insect tormentors. The house-fly is at all seasons, in some more than in others, and gives not a little annoyance by its pertinacity.
The change at the commencement of the rainy season is delightful. The doors are thrown open, and the dry, parching wind gives place to a refreshing coolness. When the rain ceases, the heat returns; the weather is very muggy, the skin is irritated by the excessive perspiration, and many suffer more than during the hot season. When the rain is abundant and frequent, the suffering is much less than when there is little rain and much sun. There is one comfort at that time: we know we are going on to the cold weather, which will make amends for all that went before.
I can hardly conceive any country to have a finer climate than that of the North-West Provinces of India in the cold months. Rain does sometimes fall during that season; it may fall at any time of the year. I remember a heavy fall on the first of May, and about Christmas and the New Year it is eagerly desired for the crops, but ordinarily from week to week there is an unclouded sky. There is a cool, pleasant breeze from the west. In the house it is not only cool but cold, so that a little sunning is pleasant, and at night in December and January, especially far up the country, fires are welcome. Then Europeans, so far as circumstances permit, get into the open air and move freely about, with everything in the climate to favour their travelling.
THE COLD SEASON.
The beginning of the cold weather is a very busy season with the agricultural class, to which the great body of the people belong. If the rainy season has been favourable, especially if heavy rain has fallen towards its close, the wells are full, and from these, after the land has been ploughed, and the seed sown for the rabee crop, the most valuable crop of the year, the fields are irrigated. Whatever grows in our land in summer grows in North-Western India at that season: wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, carrots, are grown in abundance. About March the harvest is reaped.
As I proceed with these reminiscences, I shall have frequent occasion to refer to our North Indian winter, its scenes, and employments, and I have thought it well to enter at some length into a description of its peculiarities.
One thing I observed my first year which I had abundant opportunity to observe afterwards. The weather so welcomed by Europeans is very trying to most natives, especially to those of the humbler classes, whose clothing is very scanty. They never try to get warm by taking exercise. They cower in the morning and evening round a fire, which has commonly for its fuel dried cow-manure, with a coarse blanket over their head and shoulders. As the sun gets above the horizon, they plant themselves against a wall to bask in its rays, and if they can, do not stir till they are well heated. As might be expected, many of them suffer from chronic rheumatism. The extreme heat is not liked by them, but from it they suffer far less than from cold.