The climate of Egypt, during the greater part of the year, is remarkably salubrious. The exhalations from the soil after the period of the inundation render the latter part of the autumn less healthy than the summer and winter; and cause ophthalmia and dysentery, and some other diseases, to be more prevalent then than at other seasons; and during a period of somewhat more or less than fifty days (called “el-khamáseen[12]”), commencing in April, and lasting throughout May, hot southerly winds occasionally prevail for about three days together. These winds, though they seldom cause the thermometer of Fahrenheit to rise above 95° in Lower Egypt, or, in Upper Egypt, 105°,[13] are dreadfully oppressive, even to the natives. When the plague visits Egypt, it is generally in the spring; and this disease is most severe in the period of the khamáseen. Egypt is also subject, particularly during the spring and summer, to the hot wind called the “samoom,” which is still more oppressive than the khamáseen winds, but of much shorter duration, seldom lasting longer than a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. It generally proceeds from the south-east, or south-south-east, and carries with it clouds of dust and sand. The general height of the thermometer in the depth of winter in Lower Egypt, in the afternoon and in the shade, is from 50° to 60°: in the hottest season it is from 90° to 100°; and about ten degrees higher in the southern parts of Upper Egypt. But though the summer heat is so great it is seldom very oppressive, being generally accompanied by a refreshing northerly breeze, and the air being extremely dry. There is, however, one great source of discomfort arising from this dryness—namely, an excessive quantity of dust; and there are other plagues which very much detract from the comfort which the natives of Egypt, and visitors to their country, otherwise derive from its genial climate. In spring, summer, and autumn, flies are so abundant as to be extremely annoying during the daytime, and musquitoes are troublesome at night (unless a curtain be made use of to keep them away), and sometimes even in the day; and every house that contains much wood-work (as most of the better houses do) swarms with bugs during the warm weather. Lice are not always to be avoided in any season, but they are easily got rid of; and in the cooler weather fleas are excessively numerous.