Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/248

212 tainment of travellers in India. To build such choultries or “rest-houses” is considered by the Hindus an act of the highest merit. To us, the shelter was most grateful; for, though the morning was cool and refreshing, (the thermometer standing at 81°,) the hot wind through the day whistled around us, making us thankful for a refuge from its fiery blasts. After sunset, the thermometer stood at 96°, but the heat was less oppressive than it had been in the city on previous days.

The hot land wind which visits Madras during the months of April, May, and June, sweeps over the Western Ghauts, depositing there its moisture, and crossing the parched plains of the Mysore and the Carnatic, reaches the eastern shore of South India heated and dry. All nature wilts before it, and the inhabitant of colder climes shrinks from its blasts within the cover of his house. I well remember my first experience of the hot wind. The day was warm, the thermometer standing at 91°; no sea-breeze refreshed us, and all was languor and lassitude. Presently the wind was heard rustling through the branches. On going out to greet it, it met me hot as if from an open furnace. I took my thermometer