446 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. [Decembei, 
animation and energy, shows that the benign and invigorating in- 
fluence of spring is fuHy felt. The thermometer gradually rises 
from 13° Reaum. to 17°, when a sensible change in the temperature 
is felt : and between this and 1 8° commences the summer solstice, 
and marks the heat of the twenty-first December. The southern 
winds now blow with greater force during the month of January : 
and soon after succeed those calms common to this season of the 
year. During the summer solstice, the thermometer rises to 22°; 
and the gardens and fields fill the air with the fragrance of their 
'flowers. The wheat becomes ripe, and the season abounds with 
all the sweet and luscious fruits of a tropical summer. 
As soon as the sun passes the equator to the north, a distinct 
change in the warm season is felt. The nights still continue clear/ 
while the days gradually become obscure. In April, the vapours 
become condensed, fogs cover the heavens night and day, and the 
mist commences. In the latter part of April or the beginning of 
May, the mists begin to fall profusely, and continue until the fol- 
lowing spring ; and an exposure of two or three hours will wet you 
to the skin. It is a common saying among the Limaians, " Man- 
anitas de Mayo y Avril nadie las puede sufrir." 
The only records of rain in Lima are in the years seventeers 
hundred and one, seventeen hundred and twenty, seventeen him- 
dred ninety-one, and eighteen hundred and six : and of thundej? 
and lightning in fifteen hundred and fifty-two, seventeen hundred 
and twenty, seventeen hundred and forty-seven, and eighteen 
hundred and four ; and during the latter year, it is said that the 
fruits were ripe in the spring two months before the usual time. 
In the Serrania, the atmosphere is very electrical, and to the want 
of electricity on the coast we may perhaps attribute the want of 
rain, though this striking peculiarity is generally attributed to the 
course of the winds bearing vapour, and the attraction of the clouds 
to the neighbouring Cordilleras, where the rains fall in torrents. 
