SETTING IN OF AN INDIAN MONSOON.
The shades of evening approached as we reached the ground, and just as the encampment was completed the atmosphere grew suddenly dark, the heat became oppressive, and an unusual stillness presaged the immediate setting in of the monsoon. The whole appearance of nature resembled those solemn preludes to earthquakes and hurricanes in the West Indies, from which the east in general is providentially free. We were allowed very little time for conjecture; in a few minutes the heavy clouds burst over us.... I witnessed seventeen monsoons in India, but this exceeded them all in its awful appearance and dreadful effects.
Encamped in a low situation, on the borders of a lake formed to collect the surrounding water, we found ourselves in a few hours in a liquid plain. The tent-pins giving way, in a loose soil, the tents fell down, and left the whole army exposed to the contending elements.
It requires a lively imagination to conceive the situation of a hundred thousand human beings of every description, with more than two hundred thousand elephants, camels, horses, and oxen, suddenly overwhelmed by this dreadful storm, in a strange country, without any knowledge of high or low ground; the whole being covered by an immense lake, and surrounded by thick darkness, which prevented our distinguishing a single object, except such as the vivid glare of lightning displayed in horrible forms. No language can describe the wreck of a large encampment thus instantaneously destroyed and covered with water, amid the cries of old men and helpless women, terrified by the piercing shrieks of their expiring children, unable to afford them relief. During this dreadful night more than two hundred persons and three thousand cattle perished, and the morning dawn exhibited a shocking spectacle.—Forbes's Oriental Memoirs.
GRACE OF CARRIAGE.
This requires not only a perfect freedom of motion, but also a firmness of step, or constant steady bearing of the centre of gravity over the base. It is usually possessed by those who live in the country, and according to nature, as it is called, and who take much and varied exercise. What a contrast is there between the gait of the active mountaineer, rejoicing in the consciousness of perfect nature, and of the mechanic or shopkeeper, whose life is spent in the cell of his trade, and whose body soon receives a shape and air that correspond to this!—and in the softer sex, what a contrast is there, between her who recalls to us the fabled Diana of old, and that other, who has scarcely trodden but on smooth pavements or carpets, and who, under any new circumstances, carries her person as awkwardly as something to the management of which she is not accustomed.
Arnott's Elements of Physics.