646 JAMAICA. 



to North or North-eaft, and vice V'fsd, the clouds to the Eaftward 

 feem colledted in huge piles, and prefage rain, which feldom fails 

 accompanying thefe changes. When cockroches are oblerved in 

 dvvelling-houles towards evening, flying and running about in great 

 hurry and confufion, a fhower may be expedied very fpeedily. A 

 more than unufual difturbance and noife of rats in the night-time is 

 likewife a pretty certain prognoftic. 



In November, on a change of wind from North or North-eafI: to 

 South-caft, drizzling fliowers generally follow. When the evenings 

 are clofe and fultry at the full moon, or a day or two before or after, 

 and a bur furrounds her dilk very near, rain will probably foon happen. 

 Heavy black clouds from the South and South-weft always bring rain 

 and wind. 



In Auguft, after dry weather, when there is much heat in the air, 

 and but little breeze, if a wind fprings up from the North, rain and 

 thunder may be expefted. 



ii\ September, October, November, and May, fultry, calm weather, 

 and great corrufcations in the evening round the horizon, are certain 

 forerunners of a hard rain, and moft commonly thunder. Towards 

 the latter end of September, when the wind is gentle, fluttering, and 

 at no fettled point, the clouds fiudtuating difl;erent ways, large towering 

 clouds appearing (if in the day-time) of a reddifli hue, rain and thun- 

 der may be expefted from the Southward. 



If in the month of Odiober the roaring of the fea is heard at Spanifli 

 Town, when the atmofphere aloft is hazy in the morning, as if a mift 

 was elevated to a great height, thefe are indications of approaching 

 heavy fqualls with rain. 



Rain moft frequently happens after the full of the moon, 

 A thin feud obferved towards evening, flying quickly from any 

 quarter, portends a fmart wind in the night from that quarter, either 

 with or without rain, but more generally with. 



Thefe tokens rarely fail. The heavieft rains do not fall here exadlly 

 at the time of the equinoxes j but ufually about thirty days before the 

 Vernal, and as many after the Autumnal ; but the latter conform to 

 more regularity in their periods ; and when the Vernal feafons fail, 

 the Autumnal are fure to be more plentiful and of longer continuance 

 than ufual. 



There is every reafon to believe that the rains happen very differently 

 now, both in time and quantity, in this illand, from what they for- 

 merly did ; I cannot produce a better teftimony of this change, than 

 by exhibiting the flate of them at Spanifli Town in 1688, and com- 

 paring it with recent obfervations. 



3 The 



