The earliest rain which I observed this year fell while I was still at the Meshera on the 2nd of March; and the 16th of that month was the date on which the wind altered its course, and for the first time deviated from its long-prevailing north-easterly direction. The uniformity of climate in equatorial Africa contributes very much to extend the range of particular species of plants. To this may be added the absence of those mountain systems which elsewhere, as in Asia, traverse the continent in all directions. Without let or hindrance the trade-winds exert their influence over the entire breadth of this region. Any interruption of the rainy season between the two zenith positions of the sun, which in Bongoland are some months apart, has never been authenticated. Although upon the north-west terraces of Abyssinia the rainy season might appear, through the influence of the mountains, to be obliterated or obscure, yet it could always be traced; but nevertheless the whole aggregate of circumstances which contribute to these precedents is not to be estimated during the transitory observations of one short sojourn. Neither during the continuation of my wanderings towards the south did I find any indication which seemed to evidence that two rainy seasons had anywhere coalesced so as to become one continuous period of rain, which sufficed throughout the year to maintain an uninterrupted renewal of vegetation. Nowhere in the equatorial districts which I visited (not even in the territory of the Monbuttoo, of which the latitude is between 3° and 4° N.) did it appear that there ever failed a uniform period for foliage to develop itself. Apparent exceptions might be found where the condition of the soil is never otherwise than wet throughout the year; but even in this low latitude there is a dry season and a wet season, just as decided as in Nubia, twelve degrees further to the north. [Illustration: PHENOMENON ON THE 17ᵗʰ OF MAY 1869., HALF-PAST FIVE, P.M. LAT 7° 25.´N.] [Sidenote: SOLAR PHENOMENON.]