Weather at Senegambia, See. 485. 
room for the purpofe of cooling the air, is dried up in. 
an inftant, and there is fome effeCt on the thermometer 
placed in fuch a room. Salt, fugar, and the like fubftances, 
which are half melted by the damp air during the rainy 
feafon, dry again in a few days into hard lumps. Such 
houfhold furniture as is made of wood, though it has 
been ever fo well feafoned, fhrinks and grows loofe 
where joined, or fplits and cracks where glued. It dries 
and parches the Ikin of the white people as well as the 
blacks, and makes it fometimes as rough as any clear 
frofty weather in Europe would. The fky is commonly 
clear and without clouds ; but the atmofphere is hazy, 
which, in my opinion, as I have already obferved, is oc- 
calioned by the duff, perhaps in conjunction with va- 
pours ariling from the furface of the earth and waters. 
Thefe vapours, though not to be feen in the open air, I 
have perceived by their fhadow upon white walls, arifing 
from pools which were clofe to them ; but the air being 
fo dry they are abforbed by it, and no more perceptible 
as vapour. That the evaporation muft be very great 
when this wind blows, the method the blacks have 
of cooling water will evince. They fill tanned leather 
bags with it, and hang them up in the Sun ; the w'ater 
oozes more or lefs through the leather, fo as to keep the 
outward furface of it wet, which, by its quick and con- 
S ff 2 tinued 
