430 
CLIMATE OF 
Mexiana and Marajo, the seasons are more strongly ^ 
marked than even higher up the river. In the dry I 
season, for about three months, no rain ever falls ; and | 
in the wet it is almost continual. ' ' 
But it is in the country about the falls of the Rio f ; 
Negro, that the most cimous modifications of the seasons i ' 
occm\ Here the regidar tropical dry season has almost f 
disappeared, and a constant alternation of showers and fi 
sunshine occurs, almost all the year round. In the | 
months of June, July, August, and September, when the : J 
Amazon summer is in all its glory, we have here only a ^ f 
little finer weather about June, and then rain again as 
much as ever ; till, in January or February, when the i 
wet season in the Amazon commences, there is generally ! • 
here a month or two of fine warm weather. It is then that | 
the river, which has been very slowly falling since July, | 
empties rapidly, and in March is generally at its low- ) 
est ebb. In the beginning of April it suddenly begins A 
to rise, and by the end of May has risen twenty feet, v' 
and then continues slowly rising till July, when it ' 
reaches its highest point, and begins to fall with the ■ 
Amazon. The district of the greatest quantity of rain, 
or rather of the greatest number of rainy days, seems to 
be very limited, extending only from a little below the 
falls of Sao Gabriel to Marabitanas, at the confines of 
Brazil, where the Pirapoco and Cocoi mountains, and 
the Serra of Tunuhy, seem to form a separation from the 
Venezuela district, where there is a more regular sum- 
mer in the months of December, January, and February. 
The water of the Rio Negro in the month of Septem- 
ber did not vary in temperature more than two degrees. 
