While these fires are going on, the air is full of black particles, which come floating down like an unnatural kind of snow, and the ground is covered with charred, crunching vegetation and grey ashes. The native name for this burning, or rather burnt stuff, is _lupsya_, and the early rains, which wash it away, are called _kokalupsya_, ‘that which sweeps away the _lupsya_.’ These rains are usually expected in October, and are a kind of prelude to the real rains, which should begin in November, but are sometimes delayed another month or even longer. While they last there may be continuous, soaking rains for three days together; but, more commonly, after a fine morning, the clouds begin to gather about 2 P.M., then a more or less heavy thunderstorm comes up, and the rain which follows continues into the night. By morning it is fine again, and then follows a half-day of the most exquisite weather, when you can almost feel things growing—till the thunderstorm comes up again as before. This will go on, day after day, till you get one without rain, as a change, or maybe a spell of steady rain, as aforesaid. There is usually a break of a few weeks about the end of the year—then the rains begin again, and last till March or April. Then begins the ‘hungry time,’ when the old food is done and the new crops are not yet ripe; it is sometimes a time of real scarcity, as the supplies barely last out the year, and leave no margin for emergencies. This is not so much from improvidence as from the difficulty of preserving the stores from mice and weevils. But some relief comes before long when the pumpkins, gourds, and cucumbers—many of which may be gathered wild—are ready, and they help to bridge over the time before the first ears of green maize can be plucked, though there is always a good deal of more or less serious illness at this season. About May the crops are ripe, and the dry season has fairly set in. There are occasional cold showers in June and July, and sometimes in the hills a week’s rain in August. At this time a chilly wind blows from the Indian Ocean, bringing with it heavy clouds, which, on some days, hang low, drifting along the slopes of the hills, and hurrying away to the west. Now and then, too, there is a thick white mist, like a sea-fog. But the sunny days, in the cold season, are bright and exhilarating. On such a day the difference between the temperature at noon and at night may be as much as 30°; and the dews are very heavy; a walk through long grass in the early morning drenches one like heavy rain. After this the air gets hotter and drier every day, and when the fires begin, it becomes still more oppressive. The most trying time of the year is the three or four weeks when the earth and all that is on it are ‘waiting for the rains.’ Curiously enough, the trees burst into leaf—with a greater variety of colour than our own in autumn—just _before_ the rain comes, when the ground is so baked and hard that any growth seems impossible.