324 
THE KILIMA NJARO EXPEDITION. 
where more equable, and the thermometer does not 
descend so relatively low at night. 
The seasons that prevail over this district are also 
influenced by local surroundings. Close to the coast 
the rains commence in October, intermit from Decem¬ 
ber to March, and return in all their force during 
April and May. The true “ dry season 55 is from 
June till October, during which not a drop of rain 
falls, though the sky is often clouded. Between the 
coast country and the elevated plateau about 100 
miles inland there is a district which is much stinted 
in its rainfall, except where unusually high mountains 
arrest the moisture-laden winds from the Indian Ocean. 
There we arrive at the most general type of African 
scenery—wide, rolling savannahs, covered with grass 
and scattered clumps of trees. These extend, here 
and there broken by mountain ranges, to the shores 
of the Victoria Nyanza, and over all this district the 
rainfall is generally limited to the months of Novem¬ 
ber, December, March, April, and May. On the 
western shores of the Nyanza Lake rain falls during 
ten months of the year, a contrast to the regions lying 
in the same latitudes between the Victoria Nyanza 
and the Indian Ocean. In all lofty plateaux or high 
mountain ranges the rainfall is very different to what 
it is in the plains below. Thus in Kilima-njaro it 
rains more or less throughout the year. My residence 
there was during the dry season, yet, nevertheless, 
in the month of June I had to record six days 
of rain ; in July, 8; in August, 9 ; in September, 7; 
in October, 8; and in the first half of November, 
5. The real rainy season is from November to 
May, but the Wa-caga inform me that there is 
seldom at any season a continuous heavy down- 
