49^ Cnpt, 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 3Uth 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 of rain, 

 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 



magnitude 



