METEOROLOGY. 183 



In the depth of such a mass of vegetation, when man is by himself, 

 a feeling of loneliness takes the ascendency over every other emotion ; 

 no animal is seen, and but seldom the voice of a bird heard. While 

 on the sea-side of the mountains I was only made twice aware of the 

 vicinity of a bird in two days. In the neighborhood of farms and 

 habitations of men a greater variety of birds are seen and heard, and 

 sometimes the grunting or howling of monkeys and the deafening 

 cry of parrots. 



The dry season commences here generally soon after New Year's 

 day and lasts till the end of April. The remainder of the year is 

 taken up by the rainy season. This is generally so, for there are many 

 exceptions, and our notions about the great regularity and sharply 

 defined seasons of the tropics, which we have received from books, are 

 sometimes materially upset and corrected by experience. When I first 

 came to the colony, in March, 1854, we had a dr}- season in its usual 

 way. The rainy season then commenced on the 23d of April, but it 

 did not end with the latter part of December, as is usually the case; 

 it lasted till the end of January, and commenced again with the first 

 of March, and then kept uniformly on till the end of December, 1855. 

 The dry season was, therefore, only of one month's duration instead of 

 four. The last dry season has been, on the contrary, unusually long, 

 and lasted till the latter part of May. 



I have often thought that the climate of North America may stand 

 in some kind of relation to the climate of this country. It was on 

 the 24th of December, 1853, when I left New York, to sail for La- 

 guayra. We were hardly out of sight of land when a i'urious NW. 

 gale, a real hurricane, (which is still in fresh remembrance with some 

 of the captains I have lately seen,) during a period of three days threat- 

 ened our destruction. Atter my arrival in Venezuela I was told that 

 about Christmas, 1853, one of the most fearful gales from the north was 

 telt at Laguayra.* Another question is, whether the late remarkably 

 dry and cold winter of the United States and the unusually long dry 

 season of Venezuela, as also the remarkable appearance of white frost 

 in the colony, are not connected in some way or other. 



As to the trade winds, I found on my trip from Philadelphia to 

 Laguayra that within the tropics we had no E.NE. wind, which is 

 thought to be the regular trade winds of those regions. After cross- 

 ing latitude 23^°, in longitude 684°, we were becalmed for one day, and 

 soon after got a fresh breeze from the south, which we kept all the 

 way to longitude 63^. By tacking we got to latitude 22°, longitude 

 63^°. From thence we had the wind all the time from S.SE , which 

 we kept to latitude 11|° the day before we reached Laguayra. Capt. 

 Wilkins, who has been in this southern trade for eighteen years, 

 assured me that within the last eight years he never could depend 

 much upon the trade winds. He finds that between latitude 23° and 

 18° the south wind frequently keeps on blowing very brisk for eight 

 days in succession. 



On the way from the colony to' Caracas, along the high ridge of 

 the principal mountain chain, which stretches E. and W., parallel 



■^ See page 188. 



