Rainfall and climate in India / by Sir Joseph Fayrer.

  • Joseph Fayrer
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rainfall and climate in India / by Sir Joseph Fayrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    17 stay and hope was to die. At last came this rain. It did not bring food, but it brought the assurances of future harvests, and set the poor souls to work and to hope. Even food would grow cheaper, and be more freely obtained as those precious drops pattered; for the rain came at the right time. Just when further hope seemed useless ; when, from the Indus, all along the Granges valley to the Bay, from Oude, c the garden of India/ and the principalities of the Bajput and Maharattah; from the wild fastnesses of Sind to the palm-fringed shores of the Eastern coast-^the danger of a second year of drought was gathering force. Just when it seemed inevitable that half India must be involved in the disasters of Madras, the rain-clouds hurried up in a night, and the peninsula awoke from despair.” And after a most eloquent and touching account of the sufferings during July, August, and September, when the natural rain was withheld, he goes on to say (t So the days wore on to October. The sowing of seed for next year's food now seemed hopeless, and another year of famine inevitable; but the people did not repine. They waited patiently and pathetically, closing in round the famine- works and doing their day's labour for a day's food, enduring the f evil times ' without hope but without murmur. Indeed, hope looked like folly. The news came from every side that crops had failed. The horizon of disaster seemed expanding every day. Even the stout heart of the English official began to fail him, and he spoke dismally of the future. The sky was still unflecked with clouds, and a great multitude was dying at his gates. Then, suddenly at last, when it seemed almost too late, nature relented. A shadow of clouds had grown up on the horizon, the great rain-wind blew, driving a tempest of dust before it, whirling the dead leaves from the trees, and signalling that help was coming. The birds could be seen gathering in the sky, and the cattle turned their heads to the wind, for they could scent the approaching showers. There would be a strange gloom while the dusfc-storm was passing, and the people would throng, gazing at the clouds, or waiting for the rain that they knew was close behind. The streets would be filled with men and women, and all hands would be idle, and all tongues silent, and then, lo ! the rain. “ First, great sullen drops, pattering one by one, and then, as if it could not come down fast enough or thick enough, the torrent descended. Not a mocking shower, but a glorious life-saving deluge, brimming the tanks to overflowing, and sending the dead weeds swirling down the nullahs. In instant response the earth broke out into life. From forest D
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