Expecting, as I had been, a much larger fall of rain, I could not be otherwise than much surprised at the meteorological facts which were actually exhibited. Although the rainfall extends over a longer period, the total average fall of water is less here than it is either in Gallabat or in Upper Sennaar, where the rain lasts only from the beginning of May to the beginning of October. There the rain, almost without exception, fell every night, and all night from sunset till daybreak; but here it was the result of experience that the rain ordinarily was to be expected between noon and night. All travelling consequently has to be accomplished before midday, and the journeyings are necessarily shorter than in the dry winter months. It may be taken as a rule that holds good very generally throughout the tropics that if the sun rises clear or becomes clear shortly after rising, there will pretty certainly be no rain for some four or five hours. In Gallabat it was considered rather a feat to walk during the rainy season from one house to another either in slippers or in Turkish shoes, but here, day after day, such protection for the soles of the feet was quite sufficient, even where the ground was not at all rocky. [Sidenote: CLIMATE AND TEMPERATURE.] European vegetables in Gallabat had generally been found to suffer from the excessive wet, and others had either run into weeds or in some way degenerated, but here, from May till August, we cultivated many sorts successfully, and made good use of the intervals which, sometimes for four or six days together, passed without any rain whatever. To confirm what I have said, I adduce the facts that in March 1869, in the centre of Bongoland (lat. 7° 20´ N.), the “Khareef” was opened by four little showers; in April there were seven considerable pourings; in May seven falls of rain, lasting several hours; in June ten, in July eleven, and in August twelve. These must not be reckoned as days of rain, for the truth is, an entire day of uninterrupted rain never once occurred. The rainfall only up to June was attended by tempests or thunderstorms, after which date the violence of them gradually and almost entirely abated. Heuglin in 1863 had made the same observation. At the end of July there ensued an entire change of temperature, and only in exceptionally hot afternoons did the heat ever again reach the extreme point which it had done previously; but even at its maximum it had never exceeded 95° Fahr. in the huts, whilst in the open air it was ordinarily 2° lower. I could now rejoice in a degree of heat scarcely above what is common in our northern zone, and seldom registered a temperature above 77° Fahr. in my own quarters. This fall in the thermometer is very beneficial and refreshing to the European, whose skin, exhausted by repeated perspiration, is very often distressed by a perpetual nettlerash.