The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1891-12-03
WAITING FOR The MONSOON.
A Period Of Dreary Suspense in India
"A Magic Transformation.

A Period Of Dreary Suspense IN lnula
"A Magic Transformation.
Let me try to give pen-picture OF the
end of an India summer and the begln>
ming of the period when the monsoon
rains descend, says writer in the Lou>
don Haaok Day after day the sun
pours down whitening heat, the air Is
sick with it, the ground is hard as iron,
and gapes in great cracks. as though
open mouthed, pleading to the pltlltss
sky for dropof water; the wide expanse
of country that few months past was
green and flower be sprinkled is brown,
the grass crisped with a fierce heat and
falling to powder if rubbed; the trees
mostly evergreens, are parched and dus-
ty; no breath of air rustles through, no
leaf stirs. They resemble great toy
trees, with leaves of painted wood.
There is no sound of life anywhere; the
noisy green parrots are silent, and hide
from the sun in the heart of the densest
and leafiest top.
You may, perhaps. see crow or my
nah sit solidarity on a bough, with
dropping wing and gaping beak, helpless
in this great purgatory OF fire. The
monsoon, the monsoon-will it never
come ?" you ask as you toss half naked
on your bed, worried by prickly heat
and insects which shall be nameless, not
the worst of which is the persistent,
blood>suczlng mosquito. Heat, apo
plexy perhaps, has, Frustrated one or
two of your friends, and a second in the
open air unhelmeted would be sudden
death. sWill the monsoon never
come?''
Every evening the sun drops down in
the west like great ball of fire, but
leaves the heat behind him. One even
ing YOU notice with great joy two OF
three back clouds climb up the east to
take a peep at his descending majesty
They are the advance guard, you think,
of the monsoon, and it will surely rain
before morning Morning dawns and
the sun sets to blowing his heat furnace
strong as ever; the sky is once more a
great dome of FURNISHED brass. The
monsoon at last blows the warning
trumpet, and the soughing of his wind
to the far-away horizon calls you out
from your bed to the veranda. Nature
holds her breath a great calm,a strange
hush-the hush of eXpectancy-fills
earth and air.
Ha here comes the monsoon. Away
on the western horizon a great black
cloud wave surges up toward the zenith
blotting out the Furnished sky in its
progress, just as though you poured ink
slowly into brass bowl. Behind this
black wave and moving with it is a
great, dense ebon mass, cut every in
slant by forked lightning and believing
deafening thunder The quick darling
adder tongues of flame flash everywhere,
search the believing heavens through
out from top to bottom, throughout the
whole cloud packed dome.
Now for second, only for second
the quick, flashing lightning ceases, AND
an inky blackness, the blackness Of
Erebus, succeeds, had the thunder bel
lows as Englishman in his sea>girt little
isle never heard it below. 1t is no dis
tant rumble, gradually rolling nearer
and eliminating in a resounding crack
overhead No; around about and just
overhead the internal din never ceases
The bellied clouds are pregnant with
thunder, and the flame forks, flashing
hither and thither, pierce their wombs