THE YEAR 1825. 385 



mows ; yet their bulk was delusive, the provender 

 cutting out light and strawy. The heat and 

 drought continued^ with very partial and slight 

 showers of rain, all June and July ; nor had we 

 any thing like serviceable rain till the second of 

 August. In consequence our grass lands were 

 burned up, and our fields parched, presenting deep 

 fissures in all parts. The heat was unusually dis- 

 tressing all day ; and evening brought us little or 

 no relief, as every wall radiated throughout the 

 night the heat it had imbibed from the torrid sun 

 of the day. Our bedroom windows were kept con- 

 stantly open, all apprehension from damps and 

 night airs, which at other times were of the first 

 consideration, being disregarded ; a cooler tempe- 

 rature however obtained, was alone required ; and 

 we lingered below, unwilling to encounter the toss- 

 ings and restlessness that our heated beds occa- 

 sioned. Our wainscots cracked, furniture con- 

 tracted and gaped with seams ; a sandal-wood 

 box, which had been in use for upwards of twenty 

 years in dry rooms, shrunk and warped out of all 

 form ; a capsule of the sandbox tree (hura crepi- 

 tans), which had remained in repose over a shelf 

 above the fire-place for an unknown length of time, 

 now first experienced an excess of dryness, and 

 exploded in every direction ; door-frames con- 

 tracted, window-sashes became fixed and immove- 

 able. These are trifles to relate, but yet they 



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