Geography of the Gaboon. 
55 
to it in many points. 1 The characteristic of this 
equatorial belt is uniformity of temperature : 
whilst the Arabian and the Australian deserts 
often show a variation of 50° Fahr. in a single 
day, the yearly range of the mercury at Singapore 
is about io°. The four seasons of the temperates 
are utterly unknown to the heart of the tropics— 
even in Hindostan the poet who would sing, for 
instance, the charms of spring must borrow the 
latter word (Buhar) from the Persian. If the “bull” 
be allowed, the only rule here appears to be one of 
exceptions. The traveller is always assured that 
this time there have been no rains, or no dries, or 
no tornadoes, or one or all in excess, till at last he 
comes to the conclusion that the Clerk of the 
Weather must have mislaid his ledger. Contrary 
to the popular idea, which has descended to us 
from the classics, the climate under the Line is not 
of that torrid heat which a vertical sun suggests ; 
the burning zone of the Old World begins in the 
northern hemisphere, where the regular rains do 
not extend, beyond the tenth as far as the twenty- 
fifth degree. The equatorial climate is essentially 
temperate : for instance, the heat of Sumatra, lying 
almost under the Line, rarely exceeds 24 0 R. = 
86° Fahr. In the Gaboon the thermometer 
ranges from 65° to 90° Fahr., “a degree of heat,” 
1 See “ Zanzibar City, Island, and Coast,” vol. i. chap, v sect. 2. 
