e
bay of Sierra Leone, are more healthy, enjoying the cooling sea breezes,
more than situations in the rivers more interior. The banks of all the
rivers in Africa, which I have visited, are enclosed by impenetrable
forests, marshes, and the closely combined mangrove tree, and it is but
seldom that the land forms an uneven dry surface on their borders.
Instances however in the Sierra Leone, Rio Pongo, &c. occasionally occur,
when the most picturesque scenery adorns the river.

From May to August, hurricanes or _tornados_, before described, prevail
upon the Windward Coast, and this phenomenon is to be met with from Cape
Verde to Cape Palmas. The months from November to March are remarkable for
the prevalence of east and north-east winds. When these winds, which are
called _harmatans_, set in, they are accompanied with a heavy atmosphere,
and are of a dry and destructive nature. Every description of vegetation is
blasted by their influence, and every object, animate and inanimate, feels
their powerful effects; the skin is parched and dried, and every feature is
shriveled and contracted. The most compact cabinet work will give way, the
seams of flooring open, and the planks even bend. Furniture of every sort
is distorted; in short, nothing escapes their dreadful power. The nights at
this period are cool and refreshing.

The months of July, August, September, and October are rainy, from the
equator to about the 20th degree of north latitude. Towards the equinoxial
they begin earlier, and make their progress to windward, but the difference
throughout the whole of the north tropic fluctuates little more or less
than 15 or 20 days. When the rains commence, the earth, before parched up
and consolidated into an impenetrable crust, by the powerful influence of
the sun and a long period of drought, is immediately covered with vermin
and reptiles of all sorts, creating a moving map of putrefaction. The
natives ascribe to these many of their diseases; but a further cause may be
added, namely, the great change from heat to cold, and the variations at
this season.

The powerful influence of the sun, which at this period is almost vertical,
quickly dissipates the clouds which obscure the sky, and produces an almost
insupportable effect; but new clouds soon condense, and intercept the solar
rays; a mitigating heat follows; the pores are compressed, and prespiration
ceases. Variations succeeding so rapidly, are attended with the most
s