46 Dr Heineken on the Sirocco Winds at Punchat 



ones are perhaps no more than the usual atmosphere heated 

 by a sirocco which has fallen short of the island, — and that such 

 as are *' thick^ hazy^ or cloudy^'' are a little further removed 

 from their termination than those of the Mediterranean, but 

 still so near it as to give out an aerial vapour (if the term be 

 allowable) amenable to instruments, but not sufficient to affect 

 goods, meat, paint, &c. (as I have heard to be the case in that 

 part of the world) and still less to form palpable mists, fogs, or 

 clouds. I am led to these conclusions from the evidence which 

 the tables* afford. It will there be seen, that the lowest tem- 

 perature of the preceding four-and-twenty hours has invari- 

 ably been much above the dew point during the " true'^^ siroc- 

 cos — that it has generally been above it also in the ^^ partial 

 and imperfect''^ — and always below it in those which were 

 ** thick, hazy, or cloudy ^ 



I fear that in thus venturing on a subject upon which I 

 have had no means whatever, but those afforded by very local 

 and confined observation, of informing myself, (for, as I said 

 before, I have never met with either a book or a person con- 

 versant with it,) I may have sadly committed myself, and 

 either repeated what has been better said before, or hazarded 

 in theory what may have been disproved in fact. If such should 

 be the case, I shall feel obliged to any one who will take the 

 pains of setting me right, even at the expence of a moderate 

 exposure ; and would only say in palliation, that he who for 

 eight long years of his life has been doomed, 



*' To sigh forth his breath in foreign clouds. 

 And eat the bitter bread of banishment," 



in such an ultima thule as this is with regard to literature and 

 science, and with ill health for his gaoler — may be excused for 

 knowing little more about its sirocco winds, than that they 

 annoy him while they last, and may plead the " general issue" 



* Had the *' remarks" on each individual sirocco been made at the 

 time with the intention of establishing or supporting a theory, they 

 should have been more minute and particular. They were made along with, 

 and taken from, the general observations, and, although less complete, are 

 at all events better evidence on this account. 



