beneath the feet. All behind is dark and stormy;
the wind is howling, the forests are groaning, the rain is pelting upon
the hills.

The change appears impossible; but there it is, ever the same; season
after season, year after year, the rugged top of Hackgalla struggles
with the storms, and ever victorious the cliffs smile in the sunshine
on the eastern side; the rainbow reappears with the monsoon, and its
vivid circle remains like the guardian spirit of the valley.

It is impossible to do justice to the extraordinary appearance of this
scene by description. The panoramic view in itself is celebrated; but
as the point in the road is reached where the termination of the
monsoon dissolves the cloud and rain into a thin veil of mist, the
panorama seen through the gauze-like atmosphere has the exact
appearance of a dissolving view; the depth, the height and distance of
every object, all great in reality, are magnified by the dim and
unnatural appearance; and by a few steps onward the veil gradually
fades away, and the distant prospect lies before the eye with a glassy
clearness made doubly striking by the sudden contrast.

The road winds along about midway up the mountain, bounded on the right
by the towering cliffs and sloping forest of Hackgalla, and on the left
by the almost precipitous descent of nearly one thousand feet, the
sides of which are clothed by alternate forest and waving grass. At
the bottom flows a torrent, whose roar, ascending from the hidden
depth, increases the gloomy mystery of the scene.

On the north, east and south-east of Newera Ellia the sunshine is
perpetual during the reign of the misty atmosphere, which the
south-west monsoon drives upon the western side of the mountains. Thus,
there is always an escape open from the wet season at Newera Ellia by a
short walk of three or four miles.

A long line of dark cloud is then seen, terminated by a bright blue
sky. So abrupt is the line and the cessation of the rain that it is
difficult to imagine how the moisture is absorbed.

This sudden termination of the cloud-capped mountain gives rise to a
violent wind in the sunny valleys and bare hills beneath. The chilled
air of Newera Ellia pours down into the sun-warmed atmosphere below,
and creates a gale that sweeps across the grassy hilltops with great
force, giving the sturdy rhododendrons an inclination to the north-east
which clearly marks the steadiness of the monsoon.

It is not to be supp