Half Monthly Rainfall at Madras. The average of Sixty Years from 1803 to 1866 inclusive.

150 15,000

400 40,000

Simila

Nynee Tal..........

209 20,900

Darjeling. Cherrapon jee... Sylhet..... According to the tables kept by Dr. Morton from the commencement of the year 1841 to the end of 1846, the average annual fall of rain in Tavoy during that time was 216 inches. Dr. Walter mentioned, in 1857, that the average of the preceding five years had been 194.28 inches, and the greatest recorded fall in one day, was on the 27th of May 1857, when 12.75 inches were registered. Sir James E. Tennant mentions that on the western side of the Dekhan, the mean of rain is

In Ceylon, the average rainfall rarely exceeds 80 inches.

At Mahabaleshwur it is 254 inches.

At Uttray Mullay, in Malabar, 263 inches. At Sylhet 209, and 610-3 at Cherraponji. These data will suffice to show the partial character of the rainfall, in tropical India, at different years. These are regulated by the monsoons, and in June and July, when the fall reaches upwards of 35 inches, its greatest, in the Malabar Coast, little falls on that of Coromandel, A similar fact is noticed by Admiral Fitzroy who mentions that on opposite sides of the Galapagos Islands, while one aspect exposed to the south is covered with verdure, all others are barren and parched. Similarly, the west part of Socotra during the N. E. monsoon is destitute of rain and verdure, whilst the eastern side is enriched by streams and covered by luxuriant pasturage,

In several parts of the world there is no rain at all. In the old world there are two districts of this kind: one, the desert, or Sahara, in Africa, and, in Asia, parts of Arabia, Syria, and Persia; another district lies between north latitude 30 and 50°, and between 758 and 118° of east longitude, including Thibet, Gobior Shama, and Mongolia. In the new world the rainless districts are of much less magnitude, occupying two narrow strips on the shores of Peru and Bolivia, and on the coast of Mexico and Guatemala, with a small district between Trinidad and Panama on the coast of Venezuela. The climate of the Khasia mountains, which lie north-east from Calcutta, and are separated by the valley of the Brahmaputra river from the Himalaya range, is on the other hand remarkable for the inordinate fall of rain-the greatest, it is said, which has ever been recorded. Captain Yule, established that in the single month of August 1841, there fell 264 inches of rain, or 22 feet, and that during five successive days, thirty inches fell in every twenty-four hours. Drs. Thomson and Hooker recorded thirty inches in one day and night, and during the seven months of Dr. Hooker's stay, upwards of 500 inches fell, so that the total annual fall perhaps greatly exceeded 600 inches, or fiftyfeet a quantity which has been registered in succeeding years! From April 1849, to April 1850, 502 inches (forty-two feet) fell. This unparallelled amount is attributable to the abruptness of the mountains which face the Bay of Bengal from which they are separated by 200 miles of Jheels and Sunderbunds. The district of the excessive rain is extremely limited; but a few degrees farther west, rain is said to be almost unknown, and the winter falls of snow seldom to exceed two inches.

and

Average. 0-984 0-249 0457 0726

Tennant's Ceylon, Vol. I. p. 66.

RAINA. DUK. Sinapis Chinensis.
RAIN BOW. Thek tap. BURM.

RAINY SEASON, mo kala-0000. BURM. RAIPUR. A district in Central India, between L. 80° 28' and 82° 38' and L. 19° 48' and 21° 45' comprising the larger part of the tract known by the name of Chhattisgarh, together with a large area formerly attached to Sambalpur. It is about 150 miles in breadth from east to west, and 135 miles in length from north to south. Like the rest of Central India, Chhattisgarh seems to have been inhabited in the earliest times by Bhunjiya and other Kolarian races from the east The population of Raipur has been recruited from all quarters; but the most important immigrants, and the earliest after the first great

Gond invasion, came from the north. A few wild wanderers in the jungles came from the east, while from the south and west there has been a considerable influx of population. Of the immigrant tribes, the Kurmi, Teli, Lodhi, Chamar, Abri or Gaira, Gauda and Kanwar seem to have come from the north, though a large section of Teli and some few Kurmi have come from Nagpur. The greater number of immigrants from the south and west are the Halba from Bastar and Chanda, and the Maratha race. The principal cultivating castes are Kurmi, Teli, Chamar and Haiba, though, of these, only the Kurmi and Teli are large landholders. The Chamar lay claim to a very high antiquity among the inhabitants of the district. They have all joined

the Raidasi sect formed by Rai Das, a chamar or shoe maker, a reformer, and disciple of Ramanand, who is said to have lived about the fifteenth century in the country lying to the south of Oudh and in Rewa. The creed he preached seems to have been that adopted by Ghasi Das, the celebrated Satnami teacher, who started the great movement among the Chamar race about the beginuing of the nineteenth century and who seems rather to have revived the teaching of Rai Das than preached a new religion. The term of Satnami or pure name was that assumed by the followers of Rai Das. As Satnami they are scrupulous about their eating, but slovenly and untidy in their habits, and the houses of even the wealthiest of them are generally miserable hovels. They are generally industrious though careless cultivators, and frugal in the extreme, indulging in no extravagance in dress or jewelry. The dress of the men is usually a single cloth, one end of which encircles their loins and another their head, and the women wear little or no jewelry; yet they rarely make money and seem to want the talent of getting on in the world. Their villages are seldom prosperous, though there are some few malguzar who form conspicuous exceptious to the rule. Though this apparent inability to improve their position is partly due to hindu opposition, yet one great cause of the phenomenon seems to be their individual fickleness and want of perseverance. A very slight cause will send a Chamar cultivator away from his village and though they generally return after a short interval, yet these migrations must necessarily hinder the accumulation of property.

The Gándá or Panka are Kabirpanthi or followers of Kabir, who is said to have appeared in the weaver caste, in the same country and at the same time, as Rai Das, both being disciples of Ramanand, and their doctrines being similar in many respects. Though they cultivate the land, they are not generally esteemed as cultivators, while the few villages they hold as landholders are miserable in the extreme.

The Kanwar are usually looked upon as aborigines, and though their appearance and their preference for the jungles to the cultivated tracts, as well as their abstinence from hindu observances, would seem to point to this opinion, there is also some ground for supposing them to be Rajputs, who settled in early times among the hills of the Viodhyan range, and so failed in becoming hinduised like other warlike immigrants. They have always made a claim, though in a halfhearted way to be considered as Rajputs connected with the Tuar tribe of the north-west, and their claim has certainly been recognized in one instance, as the first Kanwar chief of Narra

received his estate as a dowry with the daughter of the Rajput chief of Khariar. The warlike traditions of the race are preserved in their worship of Jhágra Khand or Jhagra Khanda, under the form of a sword, a form of worship not uncommon among Rajput tribes, and recalling to mind the sword which was the national deity of the Hun under Attila, the Kanwar of the present day are most peaceable and quiet, and when once fairly settled in a cultivated country, are industrious and good cultivators and landlords. In the jungles they have conformed generally to the customs of their neighbours, and worship Dula Deo and Burha Deo, as the Gond race also do ; and they always seem to be ready to take up with the belief of those about them though all of them, except the richer classes, who wish to be considered good hindus, avoid brahmans. They bury their dead; and marriages are performed before the elders of the village.

The Halba are immigrants from the south, and their principal colony is in the south-west where they hold thirty-seven flourishing villages. They gain their living chiefly by distilling spirits; and worship deified distillers, at the head of whom is Bahadur Kalal. They are, next to the Teli, the best cultivators; except in the jungles, they have generally become hinduised. All that is necessary for a good Halba is that he should sacrifice once in his life three goats and a pig, one to each of the national deities, called Narayan Gosain, Burha Deo, Sati and Ratna.

In the jungles also the old religion of the Gond tribe is disappearing, and while all the Gond worship Burha Deo and Dula Deo the latter being the household god, they know little of Pauritola or Karitola, Barangasura, and Gumartola, who with Burha Deo, form the distinctive gods of the Dhur Gond, to which tribe most of the Chhattisgarh Gond belong. They are all intensely superstitious and worship local deities assiduously; though, except in the jungles, the Baiga or village priest, whose business it is to propitiate the evil spirits of the neighbourhood, is as often as not a Kewat, Teli, or Ahir, as a Gond,

The other aboriginal tribes are the Binjwar, Bhunjiya, Saonra, Nahar, and Kamar; of these the Binjwar are allied to the Baiga, who are found in the Mandla district. They chiefly live in the north-east of Raipur, and oc casionally cultivate. The Bhurjiya are comparatively numerous all through the east of the district, and are particularly so in the Khariar and Birdra Nawagarh zamindaries, where they hold a good many fairly cultivated villages. The Saonra use only game. All these jungle tribes seem to bave come from Orissa, and their dialects are all akin to Uriya. Except the