34 MADEIRA METEOROLOGIC. PART iv. 



so-called " Leste," " a hot, dry wind which," says Dr. 

 Mason, " occasionally visits Madeira from the coast of 

 Africa." 



The particular wind elsewhere, he further explains, 

 " called by the Italians Sirocco, and which visits Naples 

 and the south of Italy from the opposite shores of the 

 Mediterranean, is hot, moist, and relaxing. But the wind 

 called Leste (L'Este, or east wind) in Madeira, is essen- 

 tially hot and dry. It is similar to the Samiel or Simoom, 

 described as a burning, pestilential blast, extremely arid, 

 which frequently springs up in the vast deserts of 

 Arabia, and rushes forth with tremendous fury, involving 

 whole pillars of sand." As a symptom that the Leste in 

 Madeira is that kind of wind, Dr. Mason mentions that, 

 during the occurrence of one of them, the furniture of his 

 house and the shipping in Funchal Harbour were 

 covered with impalpable red sand. " This sand," says 

 he, " must have passed over more than 200 miles of 

 sea." At a considerable elevation though ; and I find 

 recorded in my solar telescopic notes in Madeira, that 

 during June, while clouds from both north-east and 

 west were passing over the sun's disc, there were others 

 apparently higher moving from the east, and distin- 

 guished not only by the thin, wiry, cirrous character of 

 their formation, but by their peculiar blackness. 



Dr. Heineken again, so far back as 1826, remarked 

 " that it is well established that the Sirocco (as he calls 

 it) in Madeira is perfectly dry, while that of the Mediter- 



