“All the phenomena of this explosion are stupendous: thunder, as we are accustomed to be awed by it, affords but the faintest idea of its overpowering grandeur in Ceylon, and its sublimity is infinitely increased as it is faintly heard from the shore, resounding through night and darkness over the gloomy sea. The lightning, when it touches the earth where it is covered with the descending torrent, flashes into it and disappears instantaneously; but when it strikes a drier surface, in seeking better conductors, it often opens a hollow like that formed by the explosion of a shell, and frequently leaves behind it traces of vitrification. In Ceylon, however, occurrences of this kind are rare, and accidents are seldom recorded from lightning, probably owing to the profusion of trees, and especially of cocoanut palms, which, when drenched with rain, intercept the discharge, and conduct the electric matter to the earth. The rain at these periods excites the astonishment of a European; it descends in almost continuous streams, so close and so dense that the level ground, unable to absorb it sufficiently fast, is covered with one uniform sheet of water, and down the sides of acclivities it rushes in a volume that wears channels in the surface. For hours together, the noises of the torrent as it beats upon the trees and bursts upon the roofs, flowing thence in rivulets along the ground, occasions an uproar that drowns the ordinary voice and renders sleep impossible.” The monsoons of the Indian Ocean are not divided by any such distinctly defined belt of calms as separates the opposite trade-winds of the northern and southern Pacific and Atlantic. The southeast monsoon of the southern Indian Ocean passes gradually into the southwest monsoon, which prevails at the same time in the northern half of that ocean. Nor is the season of change from the one monsoon to the other precisely the same over all parts of that ocean. Indeed, the Indian Ocean, from the geographical conditions already adverted to, is exposed in much higher measure than either of the other oceans to the disturbing influences consequent upon proximity to land, and its winds are hence affected in a vastly greater degree by local conditions. Thus the Indian monsoon, the Arabian and East African monsoon, and the monsoon of northwestern Australia, assume in each case a direction which is dependent upon the geographical position and contour of the lands whence they derive their distinguishing names. In the Red Sea, the monsoons follow the direction of its shores, and blow, for six months of the year, alternately, up and down its long and trough-like valley, confined and guided in their passage by the mountain-chains which bound it upon either side.