All before is bright
and cloudless; the lovely panorama of the Ouva country spreads
before the eye for many miles beneath the feet. All behind is
dark and stormy; the wind is howling, the forests are groaning,
the rain is pelting upon the hills.
The change appears impossible; but there it is, ever the same;
season after season, year after year, the rugged top of Hackgalla
struggles with the storms, and ever victorious the cliffs smile
in the sunshine on the eastern side; the rainbow reappears with
the monsoon, and its vivid circle remains like the guardian
spirit of the valley,.
It is impossible to do justice to the extraordinary appearance of
this scene by description. The panoramic view in itself is
celebrated; but as the point in the road is reached where the
termination of the monsoon dissolves the cloud and rain into a
thin veil of mist, the panorama seen through the gauze-like
atmosphere has the exact appearance of a dissolving view; the
depth, the height and distance of every object, all great in
reality, are magnified by the dim and unnatural appearance; and
by a few steps onward the veil gradually fades away, and the
distant prospect lies before the eye with a glassy clearness made
doubly striking by the sudden contrast.
The road winds along about midway up the mountain, bounded on the
right by the towering cliffs and sloping forest of Hackgalla, and
on the left by the almost precipitous descent of nearly one
thousand feet, the sides of which are clothed by alternate forest
and waving grass.
