492 Capt. CARMICHAEL’ S Description of 
According to his account, the months of January, February and 
March are the only period throughout the year in which fair 
weather may be expected with any degree of certainty. During 
the other nine months the rain, he told us, is almost perpetual. 
How far the latter part of this statement may be correct, remains 
still to be proved ; but it was our misfortune so far to experience 
the fallacy of the first, that from the 28th of November, the day 
on which the detachment landed, to the 30th of March, when I 
quitted the island, it rained on an average every second day. 
This excessive humidity is not however entirely chargeable to 
the latitude in which the island is situated. Of this we had fre- 
quent and tantalizing proofs ; for, at the very time that the rain 
poured heaviest down, we could plainly distinguish from under 
the skirts of the cloud which hung over us, the distant horizon 
illuminated by the rays of the sun. / | ` 
The power which high mountains possess of condensing the 
moisture of the atmosphere, and precipitating it in the form ofrain, 
is no where, indeed, more apparent, or more unremittingly exerted 
than on this island. The upper region of the mountain is usually 
involved in a thick cloud, which not only obscures the whole 
island, but extends its shade to some distance over the surround- 
ing ocean. From this cloud the rain descends in heavy and pro- 
tracted showers, for the most part on the lower grounds only, but 
occasionally on the summit also. In the latter case its fall is an- 
nounced by the sudden appearance of torrents of water pouring 
in a hundred channels over the edge of the precipice, dashing 
down from cliff to cliff, and forming a series of cascades the most 
magnificent, perhaps, on the whole face of the globe. 
-With such a moist climate, and such frequent rains, it is a cir- 
cumstance worthy of remark, that the island is but scantily sup- 
plied with running water. The only permanent stream of any 
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