San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-11-14
WAITING FOR THE MONSOON.
A Period of Dreary Suspense in
India and the Joy that
Follows.

, the ground is hard as iron and gapes
. in great cracks as though open
mouthe6, pleading to the pitiless sky
for drop of water, the wide expanse
of country that a few months past
was green and flower besprinkled is
brown, the grass crisped with fierce
heat and falling to powder is rubbed;
the trees, mostly evergreens, are
parched and dusty: no breath of air
rustles through, no leaf stirs. They
resem BILE great toy trees, with leaves
of painted wood. There is no sound
of life any where; 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
mynah 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 hacked OH your bed, worried
by prickly heat and insects which
| shall be nameless. not the worst Of
which is the persistant, blood suck
| ing mosquito. Heat apopleXy has
perhaps Frustrated one or two CT your
friends, and a second in the open air
unhelmated would be sudden death.
will the monsoon never come?
Every evening the sun drops
down in the west like great ball Of
| fire, but leaves tho heat behind him.
One evening you noticed with great
| 10Y two or three black clouds climb
up the east to take peep at his de-
scending majesty. They are the adj
vance guard, you think, of the mon
soon, and it will surely rain before
| morning. Morning dawns and the
sunsets 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 soughiDg 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
of eXpectancy-fillse earth and air.
Ha! here comes the monsoon. Away
on the western Morrison q great black
cloud wave surges up toward the
zenith, plotting out the FURNISHED
sky in it's progress, just as though
you poured ink slowly into a brass
bowl. Behind this black wave and
moving with it is great, dense ebon
mass, cut every instant by forked
lightning and believing, deafening
thunder. The quick darling adder
tongues of flame flash everywhere,
search the believing heavenstbrough-
out from top to bottom. throughout
the whole cloudpacked dome.
Now for a second, only for second
the quick, flashing lightning ceases,
and an inky blackness, the blackness
of Erebus, succeeds, and the thunder
bellows as Englishnen in his sea grit
little isle never heard it below. 1t
is no distant rumble, gradually roll
ing nearer and eliminating in re-
sounding crack overhead. No; around
and just overhead the Internal din
never ceases.
The .belied clouds are pregnant
with thunder, and the flame forks
flashing hither and thither, pierce
their wombs and loose the thunder
from it's prison. 1t reminds one of
the Michael and the celestial host
warning with Lucifer and his legions.
1t Is terrible. i
Inside your bungalow the first ad
vancing wind that heralded the mon
soon carried with 1t clouds of blind
iug dust, which is now piled up an
inch high on table and chair and
shelf. And still the war of the ele-
ments goes on. You can not hear
your neighbours voice, though he
shout his utmost; the birds alright.
ted, shrek in the thickets, and the
native servants huddle themselves to-
gether IN dark corners for safety.
The sky opens flood gates and rain
in torrents pOurs down without inter-
mission for eighty or ninety hours
on the parched earth. Splash! Splash
on the roof-not in showers, but in
sheets. This Is the, monsoon,
And when it has passed
what g transformation it has
effected! The arid plain is one great
lake, through which rise number
able trees or glossy green, and crow
ding their leaty cathedrals, flocks of
parrots and mynans chatter their
thanks to God for the welcome rain.
The great lake soon disappears, alb
sorbed by the thirsty earth, and re-
veals far and fair eXpanse of ver-
dure beautiful beyond words in it's
dazzling greenery, and sprinkled with
flowers that have shot up in a night,
earths embodied hymn of praise to
the Creator for the blessing of the
mon soon.
To ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN GREET