90 TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 



1809, March 4tli. — Heavy rains that fell in the short space 

 of one hour, damaged the road upon Ladder hill, overflowed the 

 water course in James's Town, and damaged several houses. 



1811. February 22d. — '• Heavy rains overflowed the water 

 course in James's Town, and damaged some houses ; as well as 

 some plantations in Sandy Bay." 



These passages will shew that the rainy seasons were expected, 

 and usually set in much about the same periods as in later times ; 

 that is in January, or February ; which are called " the summer 

 rains," and in June and July " the winter rains." 



So far, therefore, as relates to the times of the rains setting in, 

 there seems to have been no difi'erence : but the floods that 

 happened on the 5th of May, 1719, and on the 6th of June, 1763, 

 are rather remarkable ; for the first was entirely out of season, 

 and the latter was mxich earlier than the rains usually set in. 



In the preceding extracts I have given every record I can find 

 of damages sustained by the heavy rains ; and by those it appears, 

 that the fortifications of James's Town, Rupert's Valley, Banks's, 

 and Sandy Bay, and some plantations in the low grounds, have 

 all occasionally been subject to great damage. 



It seemed to me, before I left England, that some vague accounts 

 of these floods, and of tlie great damage done by them, had gone 

 abroad, and had led to very inaccurate conclusions; for it was 

 a generally received opinion that there would be much risk in 

 loosening the soil of St. Helena, for the purposes of agriculture : 

 as it would be liable to be washed away by such violent torrents 

 of rain as had frequently happened. 



But those who entertained such erroneous notions could never 

 have been informed of the real causes of the damages they had 

 heard of: nor could they have known that these damages had 

 been partial, confined merely to the bottoms of valleys or ravines, 



