Preparations for the March. 253 
the sky is clad with a very thin mist, which, how¬ 
ever, supplies abundant downfalls. The year in 
the Lower Congo corresponds with that of the 
Gaboon in practice, if not in theory, and the 
storms are furious as those of Yoruba, where the 
seasons are, of course, inverted, the great rains 
extending from May to August. The climate is 
capricious, as everywhere about the equator, and 
the nearer the river the heavier are the showers. 
The people double their lives by reckoning the 
rains as one year, and the dries as another: 
when the old missionaries wished to explain that 
the Saviour offered Himself for the sins of man at 
the age of thirty-three, they said that he was sixty- 
six seasons old. 
After the light rains of the autumnal equinox, 
come the Mvula za Chintomba, the “ Chuvas 
grandes” of the Portuguese, lasting to the end 
of November. They are heavy, accompanied by 
violent tornadoes and storms, greatly feared by the 
people. The moisture of the atmosphere, not being 
gradually condensed by forests, must be precipi¬ 
tated in violent downfalls, and this is perhaps the 
principal evil of clearing the country. December 
begins the ‘Tittle dries,” which extend to February 
and March ; then set in the rains of the vernal 
equinox, with furious discharges of electricity; 
June is the wettest month on the highlands, but 
not on the lower river. In mid-July commence 
