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Show 1896.] FROM NYASA-LAND. 819 and the beginning of M a y : it rained then almost every day, up to the date of m y departure on or about M a y 12th. "On the Lower Shiri plains the wet season does not set in until later: no rain falls at Chiromo, I think, before the middle of November. The last day or two of October, 1894, when travelling by land from Chiromo to Blantyre, I came in for light rains on reaching the foot of the hills at the back of the Elephant marsh. "Further north, on Lake Nyasa, the rains commence later by about a month or six weeks, on the mean: much, however, depends on locality-whether the country is plain or hilly, and, again, bare or forested. " Take for instance Beep Bay, about 10° 30' S. lat., and roughly some ninety miles from the north end of the lake. Here there are low hills attaining a height of some 400 feet above the lake, and behind these again is low undulating country extending some twelve or fifteen miles inland, to the foot of the Nyika plateau, which attains on the mean a height of 7400 feet, the accepted altitude of Lake Nyasa being some 1600 odd feet. " N o rain falls at Deep Bay before the middle of November, sometimes not until later. In 1893 there was no rain before December, when there were two or three preliminary showers. The heavy rains did not set in until January 8, 1894. In 1895 there were some very heavy preliminary rains in November; the heavy rains set in, in good earnest, wdtb the waning moon in December of that year. " The rains continue until about the middle of May, sometimes a week or two later; the heavy rains slack off at the end of March. The heaviest rains of the year are between February and March ; after that it rains fitfully, at intervals of every two or three days. " In 1889 it rained all May, very heavily too during the first half of the month. In 1893 there were two very heavy downpours on the 17th and 18th July, fully five or six weeks after the dry season had set in. " In Nyika the rains commence a good deal earlier and last longer. It is a very moist country indeed; the higher parts of it can hardly be said to have any dry season, as there are rainy mists all the year through. The first rains fall about the end of September or the beginning of October. The rainfall of these mountains rather resembles that of Northern Europe, Ireland especially: it rains thickly but lightly, and for days on end at times; there are not the heavy downpours which are experienced at lower altitudes. " A hundred miles or so south of Deep Bay, at Bandawe, the rains set in earlier than at Deep Bay; this may be attributed to the fact that Bandawe is a hilly promontory, abutting from high mountainous country, some of the rainfall of which finds its way down to the lake along the neck of connecting highland. If I recollect rightly, I experienced a shower or two of rain when |