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down; and the third perfects the know how to preserve ourselves! work.

Rules for Diet.

Have a dread of the hospital! German physick stinks from afar, is good for nothing, and rather hurtful. A Russian soldier is not used to it. Messmates, know where to find roots, herbs, and pismires. A soldier is inestimable. Take care of your health! Scour the stomach when it is foul! Hunger is the best medicine! He who neglects his men, if an officer, arrest; if a subofficer, lashes; and to the private, lashes, if he neglects himself. If loose bowels want food, at sun-set a little gruel and bread. For costive bowels, some purging plant in warm water, or the liquorice-root. Remember, gentlemen, the field physick of Doctor Bellypotski!* In hot fevers eat nothing, even for twelve days; and drink your soldiers' quas; that's a soldier's physick. In intermitting fevers, neither eat or drink. It's only a punishment for neglect, if health ensues. In hospitals, the first day the bed seems soft; the second, comes French soup; and the third, the brother is laid in his coffin, and they draw him away! One dies, and ten companions round him inhale his expiring breath. In camp the sick and feeble are kept in huts, and not in villages; there the air is purer. Even without an hospital, you must not stint your money for medicine, if it can be bought; nor even for other necessaries. But all this is frivolous; we

Where one dies in an hundred with others, we lose not one in five hundred in the course of a month. For the healthy, drink, air, and food; for the sick, air, drink, and food. Brothers, the enemy trembles for you! But there is another enemy, greater than the hospital; the d--mn'd I don't know§! From the half-confessing, the guessing, lying, deceitful, the palavering equivocation, squea mishness, and nonsense of don't know, many disasters originate. Stammering, hackering--and so forth; it's shameful to relate! A soldier should be sound, brave, firm, decisive, true, honourable! Pray to God! from him comes victory and miracles! God conducts us! God is our general! For the I don't know, an officer is put in the guard; A staff-officer is served with an arrest at home. Instruction is light! Not instruction is darkness! The work fears its master! If a peasant knows not how to plough, the corn will not grow! One wise man is worth three fools! and even three are little, give six! and even six are little, give ten! One clever fellow will beat them all-overthrow them

and take them prisoners!

In the last campaign the enemy lost 75,000 well-counted men; perhaps not much less than 100,000. He fought desperately and artfully, and we lost not a full thousand**. There, brethren, you behold the effect of military instruction! Gentlemen officers, what a triumph!

* Professor Pallas supposed this to have been a manual of medicine, published for the use of the army.

Here he endeavours to counteract a Russian prejudice, that it is favourable to immoderate eating during fevers.

A sour beverage, made of fermented flour and water.

Suvorof had so great an aversion to any person's saying I don't know, in answer to his questions, that he became almost mad with passion. His officers and soldiers were so well aware of this singularity, that they would hazard any answer instantly, accurate or not, rather than venture to incur his displeasure by professing ignorance. A Russian proverb.

Here Suvorof is a little in his favourite character of the buffoon. He generally closed his harangues by endeavouring to excite laughter among his troops; and this mode of forming a climax is a peculiar characteristick of the conversation of the Russian boors. In this manner; "And not only of the boors, but the gentry!-and not only of the gentry, but the nobles!--and not only of the nobles, but the emperour!"

A slight exaggeration of Suvorof's.

ON THE LAND WINDS ON THE COAST OF COROMANDEL. BY W. ROXBURGH, M. D.

WITH respect to these land winds, it has been judiciously observed, that the subject is deservedly ranked among the curious phenomena of nature, and merits the attention of the natural philosopher; but as the minds of Europeans who have visited these regions, have been occupied with pursuits very different from philosophick research, our acquaintance with these causes have hitherto been very imperfect.

The land winds on the coast of Caromandel, says Dr. Roxburgh, are those hot winds which blow at a particular season of the year and hour of the day, from the western hills, commonly called the Ghauts, towards the bay of Bengal. In the more inland countries, as above the Ghauts, they are not confined to any regularity, though they are felt sometimes with a great degree of severity, and for hours together. I understand also, that in the upper parts of Bengal, they are sometimes experienced very severely; but whether from the west or the northward, or in what part of the year, I have not been able to ascertain. As far as this only tends to prove the insufficiency of the denomination, it would signify little, although in other respects it would be of nore moment.

As they are generally supposed to be peculiar to this country, and are felt during several months in the year, we should imagine their history and causes to have been perfectly investigated and understood; but, I know not why, neither the one nor the other has as yet been satisfactorily explained.

The most plausible reason generally given for the great accumulation of heat in them, is the heat of

the season in which they prevail, and the long tract of country over which they have to pass. That this, however, is not the true cause, it shall be my endeavour to demonstrate; to which I will add an attempt to point out the most probable one, founded on known chymical principles.

Respecting the theory I have to offer, I regret that it has found but few patrons in this country, which, however, I flatter myself may be ascribed more to the manner in which it has been proposed, than to the foundation on which it is constructed.

In order to facilitate the explanation of my sentiments, as well as to show that the land winds really deserve some attention from the philosopher, I shall briefly recount the phenomena accompanying their beginning and progress, as well as the effects by which they are generally followed.

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Could my pen equal my sensations, I should be able to paint their effects in the most lively colours, aided by eight years experience in a country the most noted on the coast for their intensity.

The land winds are preceded in the latter end of March, or in the beginning of April, by whirlwinds, which, between eleven and twelve o'clock at noon, hurry, in various directions, mostly from west to east, towards the sea. These are called by the natives Peshashs or Devils, because they sometimes do a little mischief to the lighter buildings.

About the same time, or a little after the appearance of the whirlwinds, we may observe all ranges of hills garnished as it were with clouds, which become daily darker

Samulcotah, in the northern Circars

and heavier, until they discharge themselves with much thunder and lightning in a heavy shower of rain. After this marked phenomenon, the land winds set in immediately with all the violence of which they are capable.

Their commencement is generally in the latter end of April, or beginning of May, and their reign lasts to the earlier days of June, during which period they generally exert their violence from ten or cleven o'clock in the morning, until about three or four o'clock in the after

noon.

In this season the atmosphere is commonly hazy and thick, except that in the evenings and nights, the sky is serene and clear, provided the land winds do not continue the whole dav.

The rising sun which portends a land wind day, appears of a fiery red, and as if involved in mist, which mist is changed afterwards into clouds that lie heavy on the Ghauts. The land-wind of each day is almost always preceded by a long calm, and immediately by a cloud of dust.

Their diurnal violence is terminated along the coast about two or three o'clock, by the setting in of the sea breeze, which wafts delight and health as far as its influence extends, which is not more than ten or twelve miles inland. An abatement of their intensity from thence to the Ghauts, is all that can be hoped for.

The sea breeze regularly begins in the afternoon, at one or two o'clock, blowing pretty steadily until sunset, when it dies away gradually, and at sunrise it is again perceptible, though weakly.

When I say its influence is only felt ten miles inland, I do not wish to be understood that it does not extand further; I mean only its powerful refreshing properties, which it loses in proportion to the distance from the sea, and in an in

verse ratio to its strength, which is not great. In general, it arrives at thirty miles distance from the sea, in the evening, and is then only agreeable by the ventilation it effectuates.

In the country above the Ghauts, as in Mysore, the east wind prevails also in the afternoon, but from a period much earlier, or cotempora neous with the sea breeze on the coast, which renders it clear that this inland breeze either does not extend further than to the Ghauts, or really originates there; a point which deserves to be ascertained, as another phenomenon depends upon this circumstance.

Should the sea breeze fail, as sometimes happens, the land wind decreases gradually until it dies away in the beginning of the night, which, on account of its calmness is dismal to a degree: next morning, a little motion of the airis again perceptible, but at the usual time the wind sets in as strong and hot as the day before. Every thing we put our hands upon is then distressing to the touch, which must be the case when the temperature of the body is inferiour to that of the atmosphere. This we experienced for almost a fortnight in the year 1799, in the northesn Circars, when the thermometer, at eight o'clock in the night, stood at 1080, and at noon at 112°. Shades, globes, tumblers, then very often crack and break to pices, and the wooden furniture warps and shrinks so much, that even the nails fall out of the doors and tables, &c. In their greatest intensity, however, I have never seen the thermometer rise higher than 115°, viz. in the coolest part of the house, though some say they have observed it at 130°.

The Ghauts, and the hills at no great distance from them, are then seen lighted all night by spontaneous fires, and often in a very picturesque manner.

These illuminations appear, in

general, about the middle of the mountains, and seldom or never extend to the top or bottom of them. They take place especially on those hills on which the bamboos grow very thick, which has probably led the natives to explain this phenomenon so rationally, by ascribing it to the friction of these bushes against each other.

eyes, so frequent at this time of the year.*

The continuance of this wind causes pains in the bones, and a general lassitude, in all that live; and in some, paralytick or hemiplectic affections. Its sudden approach has, besides, the dreadful effect of destroying men and animals instantaneously.

It is very common to see large kites or crows, as they fly, drop down dead; and smaller birds I have known to die, or take refuge in houses, in such numbers, that a ve

Lieutenant Kater, of his majesty's 12th regiment, thinks that the corky bark of the adenanthera pavonina, is often spontaneously inflamed, as he has frequently found, on his surveys, its bark converted into char-ry numerous family has used nocoal, and several of these trees burnt down to the roots, although they were not in the vicinity of any other trees.

In Europe, I know these spontaneous ignitions have been much discredited; and I doubt not, but should these few sheets ever be published, many objections will be raised against what I have related: but I have endeavoured to state facts only, which a luxuriant imagination might have painted in more striking colours, but I am sure not with more strict adherence to truth.

The land winds are noticed for the dryness which they generally produce on the face of the country, as well as on that of the animal creation. This sensation is particularly felt in the eyelids, which become, in some measure, quite stiff and painful. This is owing to the immediate volatilization of all humids that irrigate our organs, and which, in this particular one, probably gives rise to inflammations of the

thing else for their daily meals than these victims of the inclemency of the season and their inhospitality. In populous places it is also not very uncommon to hear, that four or five people† have died in the streets in the course of a day, in consequence of being taken unprepared. This happens especially at the first setting-in of those winds.

The natives use no other means of securing themselves against this wind, but shutting up their houses, and bathing in the morning and evening; Europeans cool it through wetted tats made of straw or grass, sometimes of the roots of the wattie, which, wetted, exhale a pleasant but faint smell. It will be incredible to those that have never witnessed it, but the evaporation is really so great, that several people must be kept constantly throwing water upon the tats (eight feet by four) in order to have the desired effect of cooling a small room. It would be scarcely necessary to

The eye-flies, so often supposed to occasion it, produce a transient and sharp pain in the eye, but never, I believe, a lasting inflammation. It is generally thought infectious, and may be so by the interference of the eye-flies carrying the contagious matter from an affected eye to a sound one.

† Four people dropped down dead at Yanam, in the year 1797, an hour after my arrival there from Masulipatam: and at Samulcotah, four or five died the same day on the short road between that place and Peddapore: the number of inhabitants of either of these places does not exceed, I believe, five thousand.

The frame of them is made of bamboos, in the form of the opening in the house to be tatted, let it be door or window, which is then covered with straw in the manner every one thinks best suited to retain the water longest.

observe, if it were not in contradiction to publick opinion, that the cold produced is not a peculiar property of the wind, but depends upon the general principle, that all liquids passing into an aëriform state, absorb heat, and cause immediately around them a diminution of it, and consequently a relative coldness. On the same principle depends also the cooling of wine and water, in the land-wind seasons, the latter in light earthen vessels, which allow an oozing of the water through their pores, and the former in bottles, wrapped in a piece of cloth, or in straw, which must be constantly kept moistened.

The great violence of these winds is at last terminated by frequent showers of rain, in June, in the low countries, and by the greater quantity of the regular rains falling in the inland countries, which seem to suspend the partial formation of clouds along the Ghauts, and to leave them clearer, and visible at a greater distance, than they had been at any other period of the year before.

After the enumeration of so many disagreeable circumstances, I am naturally led to an investigation of the causes that produce them. Before this can be done, however, I must prove, according to promise, that the theory of our philosophers is founded in errour.

They ascribe, as already observed, the extraordinary heat which distinguishes these winds from most others, to the absorption of calorick, in their passage over an extensive tract of country, at a time when the sun acts most powerfully in our latitudes.

According to this theory, the heat should increase in proportion to the space over which this wind is to travel, it should be hotter on the coast, than it is at any part of the

country inland, or, which is the same, it should decrease by degrees from the eastern to the western sea of the peninsula. Experience, however, teaches us the reverse; for it is hottest near the Ghauts, and among the valleys between those ranges of hills, than at any place on the coast; and the heat of those winds decreases also as they approach the Bay of Bengal, and in a direct ratio from the Ghauts to the sea: accordingly, it is at Ambore hotter than at Vellore, and at this place again than at Arcot, Conjeveram, and Madras, where the landwinds are seldom felt with any degree of severity.

Time is another measure applicable to the acquisition of heat, as it increases to the greatest pitch which a body is capable of receiv ing in proportion to its continuance:

the land-winds should therefore be cooler when they set in at ten or eleven o'clock, and hottest at their termination in the afternoon; they should be so at least at noon, when the sun is nearly vertical, and has the greatest influence on the substances from which heat is to be attracted. The contrary, however, comes nearest to the truth; for it is known that these winds set in with their greatest violence and heat at once, which rather abate than increase, as might be expected.

We should, on this principle, further suppose the heat would increase gradually with the return of the sun to our latitudes, from its southern declination, and stand always in proportion to its position. We find, however, that experience also contradicts this point of the theory under discussion; for after the sun has passed our zenith, the land-winds set in at once with all their intensity, in the manner before described, and they cease as abruptly before its return again.†

* The sun is in the zenith at Madras about the 26th of April.

†The sun is again in our zenith on its southern declination about the 19th August.

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