CLIMATE. — LANDSCAPE. — CORN-FIELDS. 
527 
within twenty-five miles, is exhibited in the table below *, and the 
Register of the Weather at the end of the volume will supply further 
details, which, therefore, are here omitted. The air, though exceed- 
ingly hot in summer, and sometimes even cold in winter, is certainly 
to be considered salubrious, as I never heard the natives complaining 
of any prevalent disorders which could be attributed to it. Indeed, 
its aridity during the greater part of the year, and the openness of 
the country and general dryness of the soil, are a sufficient security 
against many complaints to which countries of an opposite character 
are liable : nor is it improbable that all noxious vapors and the 
baleful influence of an exhausted or contaminated atmosphere, if such 
may be supposed ever to exist in these regions, are destroyed or cor- 
rected by the few nights' frost which occur in the course of the winter. 
The landscape about Litakun is generally of that extensive and 
open kind which presents for the pencil, little which European artists 
are accustomed to consider as picturesque. It possesses, however, 
some beauties of its own, which depend more on the effects of aerial 
tints and the coloring of a warm arid country, than on richness of 
subject or a romantic outline. 
Soon after the commencement of the rainy season, the land in 
the vicinity of the town, is converted into numerous plantations of 
corn, beans, and watermelons, and which, equally with the buildings, 
are the work only of female hands. 
* In this table, the observations from which the mid-day heat was reckoned, were not 
made literally at that hour, but as nearly about the middle, or warmest part, of the day, as 
circumstances permitted. The thermometer was always in the shade. 
Thermometrical Observations made at Litahm. 
1812. 
July 
1812. 
Aug. 
1812. 
Sept. 
15 
19 
17 
Average mid-day hea<^ by Fahrenheit's scale . . 
69f 
71 
m 
Highest mid-day heat obsei-ved .... 
79 
83 
88i 
53 
52 
61 
28i 
43 
40 
