42 
TRAVELS IN 
night. From November to April a fliower of rain fcarcely 
ever falls. 
The barometer ftands higher in the clear cold days of winter 
than in the fettled ferene weather of fummer. The height of 
the column of mercury varies, in the former feafon, from 29,46 
3^)35 inches, one point indicating a ftorm with rain, thun- 
der, and lightning ; and the other, fettled fair weather. The 
changeable point is about 29,95 3^ inches. The greateft 
range being only 89 hundred parts of an inch, the flighteft 
alteration in the ftate of the barometer is fure to indicate a 
change of weather. The range of the mercury, in the fummer 
feafon, is ftill lefs, being fcarcely ever above 30,10, or below 
29,74 inches. The fouth-eaft gales of wind feldom occafion a 
change of more than 15 hundred parts of an inch. Happy for 
the inhabitants of Cape Town that by thefe winds a conftant 
circulation of the air is kept up during the fummer months, 
without which the refleded heat from the naked front of the 
Table Mountain would make the town infupportable. 
Moft of the fatal difeafes that prevail among the natives 
fhould appear to proceed rather from their habits of life than 
from any real unhealthinefs in the climate. Nothing could 
afford a ftronger proof of this conclufion than the circumftance 
of there not having been one fick man in the general military 
hofpital for feveral months, and not more than a hundred in 
the regimental hofpitals out of five thoufand troops ; and thefe, 
according to the reports of the furgeons, were complaints gene- 
rally brought on by too free an ufe of the wines and fpirituous 
liquors 
