The natives reckon the severity, of the winter to last but forty days, which they call _Maarbanie_, beginning from the twelfth of _December_, and ending the twentieth of _January_; and in fact this computation comes near the truth. The air, during this time, is excessively piercing, particularly to strangers, even though they are but just come from a cold climate. In the thirteen years that I resided there, it happened not above three times that the ice was of sufficient strength to bear a man, and that too with caution, and only in a situation where the sun-beams never reached it. The snow, excepting three years, never lay above a day, and even in the depth of winter, when the sun shines out and there is no wind, it is warm, nay sometimes almost hot, in the open air. Narcissus’s are in flower during the whole of this weather, and hyacinths and violets at the latest appear before it is quite over. As _February_ advances, the fields which were partly green before, now by the springing up of the later grain become entirely covered with an agreeable verdure, and though the trees continue in their leafless wintery state till the end of this month, or the beginning of _March_, yet the almond, when latest, being in blossom before the middle of _February_, and quickly succeeded by the apricot, peach, _&c._ gives the gardens an agreeable appearance. The spring now becomes extremely pleasant, and has no defect but its short duration, for as _March_ brings it on with rapidity, so _April_ advances with like haste towards summer, and the gay livery that the fields wore in those two months, and indeed most of the winter, fades before the middle of _May_; and before the end of this month the whole country puts on so parched and barren an aspect, that one would scarce think it was capable of producing any thing but the very few robust plants which still have vigour enough to resist the extreme heats. From this time not so much as one refreshing shower falls, and scarce a friendly cloud appears to shelter us from the excessive heat of the sun till about the middle of _September_, when generally a little rain falling, either in _Aleppo_, or the neighbourhood, refreshes the air greatly. From these first rains till the second, an interval of at least between twenty and thirty days, the weather is temperate, serene, and extremely delightful, and if the rains have been at all plentiful, though but of a few hours duration, the country soon assumes a new face; after the second rains the weather becomes variable, and winter approaches by degrees, not with so swift a pace as the summer, for the greater part of the trees retain their leaves till the middle of _November_; the most delicate never make fires till about the end of this month, and some few pass the whole winter without them.