CH. L AN EXCEPTIONAL SEASON. 15 



We were much impressed by the accounts we received 

 of the remarkable salubrity of the climate of North 

 Marocco, and we gathered abundant evidence to the same 

 effect in regard to other parts of the territory. Nothing 

 is more rare than to find a country where neither the 

 natives nor foreign visitors have any complaint to make 

 against the climate, and in that respect Marocco is almost 

 unique. As regards the season of our visit, however, our 

 case was that of nearly all travellers in whatever country 

 they may find themselves. We had arrived in an excep- 

 tional season ! How often is this fact giavely stated as 

 something remarkable and unusual in the experience of 

 the narrator, whereas, if he would but reflect, it merely 

 represents the common experience of mankind in most 

 countries of the earth ! Excepting some portions of the 

 equatorial zone, where the seasons recur with tolerable 

 constancy, our notions of the climate of a place are got 

 at by taking an average among a great many successive 

 seasons. It is true that our own islands afford an extreme 

 instance of variability ; but elsewhere in the temperate 

 zones of both hemispheres, the difference between corre- 

 sponding seasons in successive years is often very great. 

 Any one who watches the meteorological notices published 

 in our newspapers, must be aware that if any particular 

 day, week, or month be compared with the general average 

 for the same period during a long term of years, he will 

 find it to be either considerably hotter, or colder, or drier, 

 or moister than the corresponding average day, week, or 

 month ; and when registers shall have been kept for a 

 sufficient time in other countries, the same result will be 

 seen to hold good, though in a somewhat lesser degree. 

 Travellers will then be prepared to find that they should 

 expect to enjoy or suffer from an exceptional season, and 

 will think it more remarkable when they happen to alight 

 on a season that approaches near to the average. That 

 preceding our visit had been unusually severe ; snow had 

 been seen at Tangier, and had lain for some hours on the 



