CHAPTER I. OF THEIR HUSBANDRY, &C. SECTION I. Of the Air, Winds, Weather, Seasons, &c. THE Tell, or cultivated parts of these kingdoms, lying betwixt 34° and 37° N. lat. enjoy a very wholesome and temperate air, neither too hot and sultry in summer, nor too sharp and cold in winter. During the space of twelve years that I attended the Factory of Algiers, I found the thermometer twice only contracted to the freezing point, and then the whole country, which was very unusual, was covered with snow; nor ever knew it rise to sultry weather, unless the winds blew from the Sahara. The seasons of the year insensibly fall into one another; and the great equability in the temperature of this climate appears further from this circumstance, that the barometer shews us all the revolutions of the weather in the space of 1 inch and ', or from 29 inches and to 30 inches. The winds are generally from the sea; i. e. from the W. by the N. to the E. Those from VOL. 2 K the the east are common at Algiers from May to September; and then the westerly winds take place and become the most frequent. Sometimes also, particularly about the Equinoxes, we very sensibly experience that force and impetuosity which the ancients have ascribed to the Africus*, or S. W. wind, called La-betch by these mariners. The southerly winds, or those from the Sahara, which are usually hot and violent, are not frequent. However, they blow sometimes for five or six days together in July and August, and are so excessively suffocating, that, during their continuance, the inhabitants, in order to generate fresh air, are obliged frequently to sprinkle the floors of their houses with water, or vinegar, which is the most refreshing. In the latter end of January 1730-31, a violent hot southerly wind immediately followed the thawing of the snow; which, for the space of two months, had covered the adjacent country. But both these phenomena were looked upon as very surprising and unusual. The winds from the W. the N. W. and the N. are attended with fair weather in summer, and with rain in winter. But the easterly winds, no less than the southerly, are for the most part dry, though *Afticus furibundus ac ruens ab occidente hiberno. Senec. Nat. Quæst. 5. Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt, creberque procellis Virg. En. i. 89 Hor. Carm. 1. i. od. 1 Luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum though accompanied with a thick and cloudy-atmosphere in most seasons. It is particular enough, that the mountains of Barbary and those of Italy and Spain should be differently affected with the same wind. For the former are constantly clear in easterly winds, but capped and clouded with those from the west, particularly a little before and during the time of rain; the contrary to which, I am informed, falls out in Spain and Italy. The barometer rises to 30 inches or with a northerly wind, though it be attended with the greatest rains and tempests. But there is nothing constant and regular in easterly or westerly winds; though for three or four months together, in the summer, whether the winds are from one or the other quarter, the quicksilver stands at about thirty inches, without the least variation. With the hot southerly winds, I have rarely found it higher than 29 inches and, which is also the ordinary height in stormy wet weather from the west. A The ordinary quantity of rain which falls yearly at Algiers is, at a medium, twenty-seven or twenty-eight inches. In the years 1723-4, and 1724-5, which were looked upon as dry years, there only fell about twenty-four inches; whereas, in 1730-1, which may be placed among the wet years, the quantity was upwards of thirty. The rains were still more copious an. 1732-3, amounting to more than forty inches; but this was so extraordinary, that the like had rarely happened. The showers, particularly Oct. 15. and Nov. 11. were so remarkably heavy and fre quent, that the pipes contrived to convey the rain water from their terraces, as they call the tops of their flat roofed houses, were not wide enough to receive it. Whilst I was at Tunis in February and March 1727-8, it rained forty days successively; but I have not known the like at Algiers, where it seldom rains above two or three days together, after which, there is usually a week, a fortnight or more of fair and good weather. Little or no rain falls in this climate during the summer season; and in most parts of the Sahara, particularly in the Jereede, they have seldom any rain at all. It was likewise the same in the Holy Land, Prov. xxvi. 1. where rain is accounted an unusual thing in harvest. 2 Sam. xxi. 10. where it is also mentioned, "from har"vest, till rain dropped on them;" i. e. their rainy season fell out, as in Barbary, in the autumnal and winter months; the latter end of the ninth month, which answers to our January, being de scribed |