OCTOBER 



THE cool and temperate breezes that prevail at this 

 time almost constantly from the west, attended with a 

 clear sky, announce the brilliant month of October with 

 a climate that alternately chills the frame with frosty 

 vapors by night and enlivens the heart with beauty and 

 sunshine by day. At sunrise the villagers are gath- 

 ered round their fires shivering with cold ; the chirping 

 insects also have crept into their shelters and are silent. 

 But ere the sun has gained half his meridian height the 

 villagers have forsaken their fires, and are busy in the 

 orchards beneath the glowing sunshine ; and the insects, 

 aroused from their torpor and warmed into new life, are 

 again chirping as' merrily as in August, and multitudes 

 that could hardly creep with torpor in the morning are 

 now darting and spinning in the grassy meadows. 



There are occasional dull and cloudy days in October, 

 the dreary precursors of approaching winter ; but they 

 are generally bright and clear, and unequalled by those 

 of any other month in salubrity. There are no sleep- 

 ing mists drawn over the skies to obscure the trans- 

 parency of the atmosphere ; but far as the eye can 

 reach, the distant hills lift up their heads with a clear, 

 unclouded outline, and the blue arch of heaven preserver 

 its deep azure down almost to the horizon. In the morn- 

 ings of such days a white fleecy cloud is settled upon the 

 streams and lowlands, in which the early sunbeams are 

 refracted with all the myriad hues of dawn, forming halos 

 and imperfect rainbows that seem to be pictured on a 



