The distribution is of course unequal, both as to time and localities, and in those districts where the fall is most considerable, the number of rainless days is the greatest.[1] An idea may be formed of the deluge that descends in Colombo during the change of the monsoon, from the fact that out of 72.4 inches, the annual average there, no less than 20.7 inches fall in April and May, and 21.9 in October and November, a quantity one-third greater than the total rain in England throughout an entire year.

[Footnote 1:  The average number of days on which rain fell at Colombo in the years 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835, was as follows:—­

Days. 
In January           3
February          4
March             6
April            11
May              13
June             13
July              8
August           10
September        14
October          17
November         11
December          8
—–­
Total            118]

In one important particular the phenomenon, of the Dekkan affords an analogy for that which presents itself in Ceylon.  During the south-west monsoon the clouds are driven against the lofty chain of mountains that overhang the western shore of the peninsula, and their condensed vapour descends there in copious showers.  The winds, thus early robbed of their moisture, carry but little rain to the plains of the interior, and whilst Malabar is saturated by daily showers, the sky of Coromandel is clear and serene.  In the north-east monsoon a condition the very opposite exists; the wind that then prevails is much drier, and the hills which it encounters being of lower altitude, the rains are carried further towards the interior, and whilst the weather is unsettled and stormy on the eastern shore, the western is comparatively exempt, and enjoys a calm and cloudless sky.[1]

[Footnote 1:  The mean of rain is, on the western side of the Dekkan, 80 inches, and on the eastern, 52.8.]

In like manner the west coast of Ceylon presents a contrast with the east, both in the volume of rain in each of the respective monsoons, and in the influence which the same monsoon exerts simultaneously on the one side of the island and on the other.  The greatest quantity of rain falls on the south-western portion, in the month of May, when the wind from the Indian Ocean is intercepted, and its moisture condensed by the lofty mountain ranges, surrounding Adam’s Peak.  The region principally affected by it stretches from Point-de-Galle, as far north as Putlam, and eastward till it includes the greater portion of the ancient Kandyan kingdom.  But the rains do not reach the opposite side of the island; whilst the west coast is deluged, the east is sometimes exhausted with dryness; and it not unfrequently happens that different aspects of the same mountain present at the same moment the opposite extremes of drought and moisture.[1]