In one we may observe that, when the bowels are lax from an overflow of bile, the skin is dry, and that for months together; while in another, exposed to the same changes of climate, the skin is always soft, while the secretion from the kidneys is scanty, and the intestines appear to lack their wonted moisture, and become sluggish, as if deprived of their muscular power of healthy action. But it more usually occurs, on being transported from a cold to a warm and humid climate, that a very notable alteration and increase is observed in both secretions—the biliary and cutaneous, of the liver and of the skin. The state of the bowels therefore requires to be attended to very particularly in all great transitions of climate; because, from undue accumulations in the intestinal passages during warm and sultry weather, irritation and fever may ensue, and a bilious disorder of the bowels, if neglected, or ill-treated, will too readily decline into a fatal dysentery. Having in the first chapter of the first volume of this work given a sufficiently minute account of the climate of the Peruvian coast, it will now be enough for us to remark that, at its northern extremity, though bordering on the verdant country of the Equatorial Republic, the air of the coast of Peru is less humid than it is at its southern limit, where it joins the desert of Atacama. The peculiar dryness of the province of Piura is not explained by the fact that in this part of the coast the Andes retire farther inland than in many others; for, from Piura, we have only to pass the river Tumbez, when, as formerly mentioned, the face of nature is quite changed, and the plains of Guayaquil, though at their lower and more maritime parts far distant from the inland piles of mountains, are nevertheless deluged in rain during the wet season; whereas Payta, the sea-port of Piura, has (as we have been informed by a native of those parts, our enlightened and public-spirited friend, Don Santiago Tabara,) not unfrequently, for years in succession,—sometimes as many as ten or twelve years,—not a shower to give life to a single blade of grass. At Truxillo, again, the capital of a Peruvian province, situated on the coast in lat. 8° 8´ south, the air is much drier than at Lima or Callao in 12° 2´ of south latitude: yet Truxillo is in the vicinity of lofty mountains which run parallel to the coast; and Huanchaco, its sea-port, is situated at the foot of the lofty Bell Mountains. But, to enumerate no more particulars, we think it will be found true as a general proposition that, from the desert of Atacama to the landing-place of Pizarro on the banks of the Tumbez,—from the southern tropic to close upon the line,—there is a progressive diminution of atmospherical humidity.