[Footnote 1: The mean of rain is, on the western side of the Dekkan, 80 inches, and on the eastern, 52.8.] In like manner the west coast of Ceylon presents a contrast with the east, both in the volume of rain in each of the respective monsoons, and in the influence which the same monsoon exerts simultaneously on the one side of the island and on the other. The greatest quantity of rain falls on the south-western portion, in the month of May, when the wind from the Indian Ocean is intercepted, and its moisture condensed by the lofty mountain ranges, surrounding Adam's Peak. The region principally affected by it stretches from Point-de-Galle, as far north as Putlam, and eastward till it includes the greater portion of the ancient Kandyan kingdom. But the rains do not reach the opposite side of the island; whilst the west coast is deluged, the east is sometimes exhausted with dryness; and it not unfrequently happens that different aspects of the same mountain present at the same moment the opposite extremes of drought and moisture.[1] [Footnote 1: ADMIRAL FITZROY has described, in his _Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, the striking degree in which this simultaneous dissimilarity of climate is exhibited on opposite sides of the Galapagos Islands; one aspect exposed to the south being covered with verdure and freshened with moisture, whilst all others are barren and parched.--Vol. ii. p. 502-3. The same state of things exists in the east and west sides of the Peruvian Andes, and in the mountains of Patagonia. And no more remarkable example of it exists than in the island of Socotra, east of the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, the west coast of which, during the north-east monsoon, is destitute of rain and verdure, whilst the eastern side is enriched by streams and covered by luxuriant pasturage.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ vol. iv. p. 141.] [Illustration: DIAGRAM EXHIBITING THE COMPARATIVE FALL OF RAIN ON THE SEABORDE OF THE DEEKAN, AND AT COLOMBO, IN THE WESTERN PROVINCE OF CEYLON. One maximum at the spring change of the monsoon anticipating a little that on the West coast of India; another at the autumnal change corresponding more exactly with that of the East coast. The entire fall through the year more equably distributed at Columbo.] On the east coast, on the other hand, the fall, during the north-east monsoon, is very similar in degree to that on the coast of Coromandel, as the mountains are lower and more remote from the sea, the clouds are carried farther inland and it rains simultaneously on both sides of the island, though much less on the west than during the other monsoon. _The climate of Galle_, as already stated, resembles in its general characteristics that of Colombo, but, being further to the south, and more equally exposed to the influence of both the monsoons, the temperature is not quite so high; and, during the cold season, it falls some degrees lower, especially in the evening and early morning.[1]