THE AMAZON VALLEY. 



297 



CLIMATE. 



The climate of the Amazon valley seems remarkable for 

 uniformity of temperature, and for a regular supply of moisture. 

 There are, in most parts of it, six months' wet, and six months' 

 dry season, neither of which are so severe as in some other 

 tropical countries. From June to December is the dry, and 

 from January to May the wet season. In the dry season there 

 are a few occasional rains, especially about All Saints' day, in 

 November ; and during the wet season there are intervals of 

 fine weather, and often bright mornings, and many days of 

 gentle misty rain. 



This is the general character of the climate over the whole 

 of the main stream of the Amazon and its immediate neigh- 

 bourhood. There are, however, remarkable deviations from 

 this general routine, in particular localities. Para itself is one 

 of these exceptional places. Here the seasons are so modified, 

 as to render the climate one of the most agreeable in the 

 world. During the whole of the dry season, scarcely ever 

 more than three days or a week passes without a slight thunder- 

 storm and heavy shower, which comes on about four in the 

 afternoon and by six has cleared off again, leaving the atmo- 

 sphere delightfully pure and cool and all vegetable and animal 

 life refreshed and invigorated. Had I only judged of the 

 climate of Para from my first residence of a year, I might be 

 thought to have been impressed by the novelty of the tropical 

 cHmate ; but on my return from a three years' sojourn on the 

 Upper Amazon and Rio Negro, I was equally struck with the 

 wonderful freshness and brilliancy of the atmosphere, and the 

 balmy mildness of the evenings, which are certainly not equalled 

 in any other part I have visited. 



The wet season has not so many stormy and cloudy days 

 as in other parts. Sunshine and rain alternate, and the days 

 are comparatively bright and cheerful, even when rainy. 

 Generally, the variation of the thermometer in any one day 

 does not exceed 15°; 75° being the lowest, and 90° the highest. 

 The greatest variation in one day is not, I think, ever more 

 than 20° ; and in four years, the lowest and highest tempera- 

 tures were 70° and 95°, giving only an extreme variation of 25°. 

 A more equable climate probably does not exist on the earth. 

 (See Diagram, Plate XI.) 



