March.—­In March the heat continues to increase, the earth receiving more warmth than it radiates or parts with by evaporation.  The day becomes oppressive, the nights unrefreshing, the grass is withered and brown, the earth hard and cleft, the lakes shrunk to shallows, and the rivers evaporated to dryness.  Europeans now escape from the low country, and betake themselves to the shade of the forests adjoining the coffee-plantations in the hills; or to the still higher sanatarium of Neuera-ellia, nearly the loftiest plateau in the mountains of the Kandyan range.  The winds, when any are perceptible, are faint and unsteady with a still increasing westerly tendency, partial showers sometimes fall, and thunder begins to mutter towards sunset.  At the close of the month, the mean temperature will be found to have advanced about a degree, but the sensible temperature and the force of the sun’s rays are felt in a still more perceptible proportion.

[Sidenote: 
Wind N.W. to S.W. 
Temperature, 24 hours: 
  Mean greatest 88.7 deg. 
  Mean least 73.6 deg. 
Rain (inches) 7.4]

April is by far the most oppressive portion of the year for those who remain at the sea-level of the island.  The temperature continues to rise as the sun in his northern progress passes vertically over the island.  A mirage fills the hollows with mimic water; the heat in close apartments becomes extreme, and every living creature flies to the shade from the suffocating glare of mid-day.  At length the sea exhibits symptoms of an approaching change, a ground swell sets in from the west, and the breeze towards sunset brings clouds and grateful showers.  At the end of the month the mean temperature attains its greatest height during the year, being about 83 deg. in the day, and 10 deg. lower at night.

[Sidenote: 
Wind N.W. to S.W. 
Temperature, 24 hours: 
  Mean greatest 87.2 deg. 
  Mean least 72.9 deg. 
Rain (inches) 13.3]

May is signalised by the great event of the change of the monsoon, and all the grand phenomena which accompany its approach.

It is difficult for any one who has not resided in the tropics to comprehend the feeling of enjoyment which accompanies these periodical commotions of the atmosphere; in Europe they would be fraught with annoyance, but in Ceylon they are welcomed with a relish proportionate to the monotony they dispel.

Long before the wished-for period arrives, the verdure produced by the previous rains becomes almost obliterated by the burning droughts of March and April.  The deciduous trees shed their foliage, the plants cease to put forth fresh leaves, and all vegetable life languishes under the unwholesome heat.  The grass withers on the baked and cloven earth, and red dust settles on the branches and thirsty brushwood.  The insects, deprived of their accustomed food, disappear underground or hide beneath the decaying bark; the water-beetles