During the rainy season there are many days free from showers. The mornings are generally clear, and although the rains sometimes continue without intermission for several days, and frequently fall in torrents, they are not marked on Java by that decided character, either of permanence or violence, which distinguishes the periodical rains of the continent of India; neither is the dry season distinguished by that excessive aridity which attends the hot seasons of that country. Even in July and August, the atmosphere is refreshed by occasional showers, and the landscape is at all times of the year covered with the brightest verdure. The thermometer of Fahrenheit has been known to rise along the northern coast as high as 90° about three in the afternoon, and even higher, particularly in the large and low capitals of Batavia, _Semárang_, and _Surabáya_; but from observations made during a course of some years at Batavia, and published under the authority of the Dutch government, it has been found usually to range between 70 and 74° in the evenings and mornings, and to stand about 83° at noon. By similar observations at _Semárang_, the same thermometer, placed in a spacious and open apartment, has averaged 87½° at noon. At a distance inland of not more than thirty or forty miles, where the ascent is gradual, and of fifteen or twenty or less where it is rapid, the thermometer falls from five to ten degrees lower. At _Chi-serúa_, situated about 40 miles inland of Batavia, and _Chi-pánas_, about twelve miles further, on the opposite slope of the mountain _Gedé_, the thermometer ranges generally between 60 and 70°. In the morning, at six o'clock, it is sometimes as low as 57°; and in the afternoon, at three, its usual height is from 67 to 70°, but seldom rising to 72°. On some of the hills inland of _Semárang_, on which Europeans frequently reside during the dry season, at an elevation of about four thousand feet, the thermometer is frequently seen as low as 45°, and generally, in the clear season, ranges from 50 to 62°, and on the summit of one of the mountains (_Sindóro_) it has been observed as low as 27°[27]. Ice, as thick as a Spanish dollar, has been found; and hoar-frost, denominated _bóhon úpas_, or the poisonous dew, has been observed on the trees and vegetation of some of the higher regions. By its insular situation, the climate of Java enjoys the benefit of land and sea breezes, which in its least favoured parts subdue the fierceness of the tropical rays, while the great elevation of its interior affords the rare advantage, that from the sea-shore up to the tops of the mountains, there is, almost from one end of the island to the other, a regular diminution of the temperature, at the rate of two or three degrees of Fahrenheit for every ten miles.