356

INDIA

hy the process of evaporation under a gentle current of
moving air.
As the hot weather proceeds the first sign of the
approaching regeneration of dead nature is usually the
-ecurrence of sand or dust storms. Unpleasant as these
rushes of dust-laden air may be, they do undoubtedly cool
the atmospheric furnace, whether accompanied by rain (as
's frequently the case) or not. There is much that is imoressive
 about the resistless advance of a dust-storm, but
‘t is not often that the phenomenon can be watched to
advantage. I once watched an apparently solid wall of
whirling sand sweeping along the plains of the Derajat
until it broke eventually against the foot of the mountain
on which I stood above it. I noted with astonishment
the extreme regularity of its movements. There was no
hurrying and no scattering of its force. No column of
troops could have advanced with such a level front, with
such apparently resistless action, or with one-fifth its
velocity. There was not a break in the flat wall of dull
red sand which reached upward some 200 feet above the
plain, presenting its red-brown front to the mountains,
with purple wisps and streamers curling aloft like the
banners of a Dervish army. So long as the plain was
unbroken and its surface level, not an opening or an
:ndentation could be marked, but as soon as it reached
the slanting spurs of the lowest hills, rushes were made
from flanks and centre. Small clouds of skirmishers
streamed up the narrow gullies between the spurs, mounting
 high and falling backwards, as waves fall, ere they
reached the summit of the hill. Soon the whole atmosphere
 thickened, and although no great amount of dust
reached upwards to the g4ooo feet of elevation on which
[ stood, a smart shower of rain put an end to further
observations.
The first heavy rain that denotes the arrival of the
expected monsoon fills the whole country with gladness.
[n an almost incredibly short space of time the brown
hard surface of an uninteresting level of endless plain is
changed into a sea of vegetation. Not only do the young