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CHAPTER IV. 



CLIMATE TEMPERATURE RAINS DISEASES. 



FOR a long period, Trinidad has been, and is still regarded as 

 very unhealthy ; but it is really less so than many other countries 

 similarly situated. For instance, the rate of mortality in this 

 island is 1 per 30 inhabitants, being less than that of several 

 large towns in Europe, viz. : Madrid, Palermo, Naples, Rome, 

 and Vienna. But the rate of mortality is not perhaps a correct 

 criterion of the salubrity of a country ; and the greater or less 

 prevalence of ordinary maladies, together with the proportion of 

 the diseased to the total population, ought also to be taken into 

 account. Now, if the salubrity of Trinidad is to be determined 

 by this test, it must be confessed that the island stands lower than 

 several places in which the rate of mortality is actually greater. 



The climate of Trinidad is almost identical with that of the 

 other Antilles. It is an intertropical, and, at the same time, an 

 insular climate ; that is to say, it is cooler than a continental 

 country under the same latitude and of the same altitude, and 

 its temperature more equal. It, however, presents the following 

 peculiarities, when compared with the sister islands: a total 

 exemption from hurricanes, a greater regularity in the periodical 

 returns of seasons, and its being but little subject to the incon- 

 veniences arising from droughts and blighting winds ; the 

 contrast between the temperature of the day and night is 

 also, perhaps, greater the latter being deliciously cool from 

 December to April. 



In Trinidad, as in other tropical climates, there are only two 

 seasons the dry, and the wet or rainy. The dry season may be 

 said to commence with January and end with May five months ; 

 while the rainy season sets in with June, and lasts to the middle 

 of December. February, March, and April, are the driest months 

 of the year. The heat of the sun is then scorching ; the grass 



