January is not properly speaking the rainy season. The rains at the commencement of the year are called the _primeiras aguas_ or the first waters, and continue for about a fortnight or three weeks, after which the weather generally becomes again settled until May or June, and from this time until the end of August the rains are usually pretty constant. From August or September until the opening of the year there is not usually any rain. The dry weather can be depended upon with more certainty from September until January, than from February until May; likewise the wet weather can be looked for with more certainty from June until August than in January. There are very few days during the whole course of the year of incessant rain. What I have said regarding the seasons must however be taken with some latitude, as in all climates they are subject to variation. The horse I left at the dry lake was faithfully delivered to me, and I continued my journey on the following day to Natal. The governor received me with the same cordiality as before. I had now left the Sertam, and though it treated me rather roughly, still I have always wished I could have seen more of it. There is a certain pleasure which I cannot describe in crossing new countries, and that portion of territory over which I had travelled was new to an Englishman. From the sensations which I experienced I can well imagine what those are, which travellers in unexplored countries must feel at every step—at every novelty which comes under their view. There is yet much ground upon the continent of South America to be traversed, and I most heartily wish that it had been my fate to be the civilized individual first doomed to cross from Pernambuco to Lima.