CLIMATE

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crops spread in vivid green expanse against the grey
background with startling rapidity, but ill-gotten weeds
appear in every crevice of the broken wall and pastureland,
 and in every unoccupied space of the cultivated
garden. The gardener rejoices in a new birth of flowers,
and resigns himself to philosophical contemplation of the
weeds, and watches both grow together under the magic
influence of the rains in rank abundance. Life becomes
endurable once more ; birds begin to chatter (they never
sing under any circumstances in the plains of India), and
‘he cultivator turns to the consideration of his annual
-otation of crops.
Closely connected with the climatic changes that are
so marked in India is the all-important matter of their
influence on European health and life. It is not simply
the heat of India, nor the uncongenial surroundings of
native apathy and perversity, so foreign to the nature of
the European trained in British schools; not the expatriation,
 nor the yearning for the arts and graces of a newer
and more familiar form of civilisation—none of these
things, nor all these combined, would prevent the colonisation
 of India by Englishmen were the great barrier caused
by ill-health and failing vitality to be removed. The first
question asked about any locality to which the vicissitudes
of official life may despatch the servant of the Indian
Government is—¢ Is it healthy?” As a matter of fact
no part of India is altogether suitable for European
existence. Neither plains nor hills, jungles nor deserts,
are altogether free from that slow but most pernicious
influence which is called “malaria” ; but the geographical
distribution of the worst forms of that pernicious poison
(or of the particular species of mosquito which distributes
it) is worth attention.
There are many forms of the malady known as Indian
fever ; and inasmuch as it claims more victims in a year
In one single district in India than all other diseases put
together (even including epidemics, as plague and cholera),
and is probably the greatest barrier that exists to the
development of European life in the country, it becomes