A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c7.19

c7.19

Lying athwart the course of the Arabian Sea branch of the south-west monsoon, the Western Ghats bring about a striking difference in rainfall between the regions on either side of them; west of the ghats, the steep edge receives the bulk of the moisture carried by the monsoon, while to the east on the leeward side is the rain-shadow region where the rainfall is not only scanty but highly variable in character. The monsoon literally pours on the west, the annual average being 80 inches on the coastal plain increasing in the higher regions to more than 300 in some stations like Mahabaleshwar. On the eastern side of the ghats the rainfall in most cases is less than 40 inches. This difference in rainfall is naturally reflected in the vegetation. The copious summer rainfall of the coastal plain and the windward slopes of the ghats clothes them with dense vegetation of the evergreen-forest type. The forests contain many kinds of trees of great size and much economic value. Bamboos are plentiful and associated with them locally are to be found teak in abundance, rosewood, and ironwood. The shore is skirted with coconuts and the villages surrounded with groves of betel-nut palm and talipot. Cassia and cardamom flourish wild in the jungles, and the fact that pepper can be cultivated without the screens used in other parts of India to preserve the humidity conveys an idea of how naturally moist the coastal region is.