of the compass.” All nature languishes under the influence of this wind: vegetation droops and withers; the Italians suffering from it not less than strangers. When any feeble literary production appears, the strongest phrase of disapprobation they can bestow is—_era scritto in temps del sirocco_, “it was written in the time of the sirocco.” There can be little doubt but that this hot south-east wind sweeps across the Mediterranean from the shores of Africa. It is some compensation that the season of this oppressive blast is also that of the north-east Etesian winds, and not unfrequently, after a few hours’ experience of the enfeebling influence of the sirocco, the tramontane—or north wind—follows with its invigorating breath. Hot winds, resembling the sirocco of Sicily and Italy, prevail in New South Wales, and are supposed to derive their heat from tracts of unknown deserts in the intertropical regions of that island-continent. “One might almost fancy,” says Mrs. Meredith, “the Ancient Mariner to have experienced one during his ghostly voyage, he so accurately describes their aspect— All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon. The sirocco of that country always blows from the north-west. At Sydney, its oven-like temperature is moderated by the mid-day sea-breeze; but in the interior it is severely felt, and is often fatal to the vegetation. Every green thing droops and dies, dried up like half-burnt paper. Large tracts of cultivated land, covered with luxuriant green crops of wheat or barley, just going into ear, are scorched, shriveled, and absolutely blackened by the heat, and become fit for nothing but to be cut as litter; and of course the delicate plants and flowers of the gardens are not spared by the “burning breath of the fervid Air-king.”