CLIMATE, TE:\rPERATUEE, SEASONS. 
51 
large and substantial bridges. Tor about six "weeks — 
from tlie middle of September to the end of October — 
we are highly favoured by a most acceptable season of 
dry weather, called the Indian summer : this season 
being late in the year, when the sun is well north, is a 
beautiful and delightful time. In former years, when 
cattle mills were in more general use than now, half a 
hundred bogheads of sugar or thereabout w'ere generally 
made, but now, since steam-engines have been brought 
into general use, very few estates trouble to make sugar 
at this time. 
The months of November and December are 
generally very wet and dull months. The days are at 
their shortest, and not much can be done. The cane& 
arrow in October, and during these last two months of 
the year the land is soaked, in some places swamped, 
and the canes saturated with water. The sun of 
January and Tebruary, however, soon causes the land to 
dry up, and the moisture from the canes to evaporate. 
Persons coming from Europe generally complain of 
the heat of Trinidad, but after a few months’ residence 
in the island they cease in good measure to feel its 
effects; the system adapts itself to the heat of the 
climate, and that which at first occupied much thought 
soon ceases to trouble the mind. 
The temperature by day in Trinidad ranges from 
about 80° to 90°. Some months are hotter than others ; 
June, ]\Iay, and April are the hottest ; September and 
October coming next in degree. The nights of Decem- 
ber and Januaiy are cold enough to make a blanket 
acceptable. Before dawn, about four o’clock in the 
month of January, it may be said to be jjositively 
cold. After sunset also in this month a chilliness is 
felt. 
During the day most persons carry a parasol ; for in 
Trinidad it is not looked upon as at all effeminate for a 
man to carry a large umbrella over his head. It is the 
custom of the writer ahvays to carry an open umbrella, 
E 2 
