Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/99

 annoyance, so laden with dust, that it insinuates itself by every crevice, and encrusts every article of furniture; the tables are very convenient for teaching children their letters: the nostrils become encrusted with it, the lungs themselves are open to its deposit, and frequent expectoration is necessary to get rid of it. The doors now warp, the furniture twists and cracks as if exposed to the heat of a fire; and if iced water be poured into a glass, it is as liable to break, as if boiling water in a cold temperature were poured into it. Nothing can exceed the sterile, burnt-up appearance of the country; during the prevalence of the hot winds the trees keep their foliage, but the earth is stripped of all herbage as if a flood of lava had flowed over it, drinking its rivers dry and leaving it calcined and strewed with ashes. As the wind generally lulls at night, the house is heated to a degree not to be endured, and many have their beds carried out of doors under the open sky with no other covering but the starry firmament. No regiments move at this season unless under great emergencies,and if a march is made,many fatal cases are unavoidable. With all the inconveniences of the hot winds, troops in cantonments are more healthy than in the cooler season of the rains which succeeds them. Fortunately, the hot winds carry their own antidote along with them and