WEATHER FREAKS OF THE WEST INDIES. 791 



fill their water barrels by means of rain sails, but not one drop for the 

 parched plantations of the tree-destroy 6r. 



Less easy to explain is the mania for cloud bursts which in cer- 

 tain years seems to seize the climate, both of eastern Cuba and 

 northern Santo Domingo. As a rule, the rainy season begins about 

 the middle of June and continues till late in September or that part 

 of October when lucky Colon realized the dream of his life, and for 

 the next ten weeks had cause to consider the climate superior to that 

 of the Andalusian garden lands. But there are summers when the 

 American colonists hesitate to aggravate the temperature of the na- 

 tional holiday with fireworks, and when heretics and true believers 

 have to combine their prayers for showers enough to save the pine- 

 apple harvest. 



In such years droughts or dryish sultry weather may continue to 

 the end of July, but before the middle of August Nature evinces a 

 disposition to make up for lost time, and monstrous thundershowers 

 occur day after day, till the roar of the sierra brooks can be heard 

 from a distance of several miles. And the land's appetite for these 

 potations appears to grow with every indulgence. The first sensa- 

 tion of drowning is said to be pleasant, rather than otherwise, but 

 that rule admits of an exception in the case of a wanderer caught 

 in a Cuban chorasso and feeling his influenza-resisting ability 

 yield to the persistence of the merciless shower bath till the re- 

 mains of his vital vigor flicker on the verge of extinction. Yet, 

 during the intervals of these celestial waterfalls the atmospheric 

 condition may not appreciably differ from those of other year*; 

 the same cool nights, the same mist-dispersing land winds and balmy 

 mornings; warm but breezy forenoons, the cooling sea wind sub- 

 siding about 11 A. M. ; then clouds and boding thunder growls. At 

 2 p. M. the thermometer may indicate 95° in the shade; the exact 

 average of normal years at that time of a summer day; but again 

 the extravasation of moisture, which, according to the rule of aver- 

 ages ought to be limited to a good, brisk shower, will come in the 

 form of a deluge. After four or five weeks of such excesses the weather 

 does begin to recover its temper, and a peculiar cool vapor, hovering 

 about tlie drenched woodlands, seems to counteract the formation 

 of waterfall clouds, the noonday hours still grow sultry, and thunder 

 mutters its warnings on general principles; but the natives decline to 

 stampede; experience has taught them that the wrath of Nature has 

 been pro]utiated, and that the peril of atmospheric dam-breaks is over 

 for that year. 



Torrent summers occur about once in four years, and while they 

 last the discomforts of travel in the interior of Cuba can hardly be 

 exaggerated. The railroads of the coast plain have become bayous, 



