Note 235 — Chapter XXI
Reading edition
Mr. Cooley, the self-styled “Opener of Inner Africa,” has lately (Athenæum, July 18, 1863) informed the world, that “the rainy season is also the hot season, near the equator.” Is this dotage? Barbot (book 3, chap. xii.) informs us that the Guinea year has two seasons, the summer and winter (of the Portuguese and English), called good and bad by the Dutch; high and low by the French. “Summer (i.e. hot dry weather) begins in September, and lasts the five following months, and the winter (i.e. cold wet season) holds the other six months of the year, which are also divided into two rainy, two misty and rainy (or smoky), and two windy and rainy months (our tornadoes).” So of the Great Bandy (or Bonny River, with which he was personally acquainted), he says (book 4, chap. viii.), “We reckon the months of October, November, and December, the worst season, because of the dry scorching heat of the sun.”