In November and December, when the dry season may be reckoned to have set in, the weather, except for an interval at noon, is for the most part cool, bracing, and delightful: and April, too, is in this respect an agreeable month; at the latter end of which, the natives of the capital, being so exceedingly sensitive as to feel a difference of only two or three degrees betwixt the temperature of two succeeding days like an entire change of climate, are admonished, by a disagreeable change in their sensations, to protect themselves by warm apparel against the chills arising from an occasional north-west, or from the influence of the common south-west wind. Throughout summer the wind blows almost uniformly, and in gentle breezes, from the south; but the prevailing wind for nine months in the year is the south-west, which, as it mingles with the warmer air along the arid coasts of Peru, tends to moderate the temperature of the atmosphere, and to produce the fog and “garua,” or thick Scotch mists, of which we have taken notice. During the dry season on the coast, the rains are experienced in the interior of the country and lofty range of the high table-lands,—especially in the months of January, February, and March, when the rain that falls inland is often very heavy, and, on the most elevated regions, it is not unfrequently alternated with snow and hail. Thus, the dry season of the coast is the wet in the sierra, or mountain land, and _vice versâ_; and by merely ascending nigher to the sierra, or descending close to the sea, without any appreciable shifting of latitude, the favoured Peruvians may enjoy, by the short migration of a few leagues, a perpetual summer or an endless winter,—if that, indeed, should be called winter, which is the season of natural growth and herbage. Whoever, late in August, or early in September, has had the good fortune to visit _Buena Vista_ in the enchanting vale of Lurin, six or seven leagues south of Lima, and for many years the hospitable mansion of that enlightened philanthropist, John Thomas, Esquire, must have observed that at this season, when the sandy downs of Lurin are yet moistened by slight rains and vapours, and garnished with flowers, such of the trees in the vale as are not evergreen, and depend not, like the vegetation of the neighbouring heights, on the periodical rain of the coast, impart a certain melancholy hue to the landscape, as they have already commenced to shed abroad their sear foliage; and here the music of the thicket, and booth on the height, are both in unison with feelings inspired by the yellow-leaved willows, when the “lomero,” or herdsman of the downs, tunes the “yaravi,” a mournful Indian strain, on his homely lute, and when the _cuculi_, in a plaintive note, responds from the guarango grove.