ds fades away. Even the vertical stars of the
constellations Aquila and Ophiuchus, shine with a flickering and less
planetary light. Like some distant mountain, a single cloud is seen rising
perpendicularly on the southern horizon. Misty vapors collect and
gradually overspread the heavens, while distant thunder proclaims the
approach of the vivifying rain. Scarcely is the surface of the earth
moistened, before the teeming steppe becomes covered with Killingiae, with
the many-panicled Paspalum, and a variety of grasses. Excited by the power
of light, the herbaceous Mimosa unfolds its dormant, drooping leaves,
hailing, as it were, the rising sun in chorus with the matin song of the
birds, and the opening flowers of aquatics. Horses and oxen, buoyant with
life and enjoyment, roam over and crop the plains. The luxuriant grass
hides the beautiful and spotted jaguar, who, lurking in safe concealment,
and carefully measuring the extent of the leap, darts, like the Asiatic
tiger, with a cat-like bound on his passing prey."

Such is Humboldt's description of the dry season on the Orinoco, and the
return of the belt of rains from the south.

Again, within this trade-wind region are the _rainless countries_. These
are portions of the earth which the equatorial rainy belt does not ascend
far enough north in summer to cover, nor does the southern edge of the
extra-tropical regular rains descend, in winter, far enough south to cover
them, and where, of course, rain seldom, if ever, falls. Such are the
central parts of the Desert of Sahara, Egypt, Arabia, portions of
Affghanistan, Beloochistan, and the western parts of Hindoostan, to the
north of the inter-tropical belt, and a similar state of things exists
south of the equator in parts of South America, Africa, and New Holland,
although upon a comparatively small surface.

Again, another anomaly is the gathering of the trade winds into greater
volumes, on the westerly side of the great oceans, and the consequent
carrying of the equatorial rainy belt up to the region of extra-tropical
rains, on the eastern side of the great continents of Asia and North
America, and the peculiar liability of these aerial gulfs to hurricanes
and typhoons. Such an aerial gulf gathers over the Caribbean Sea, and the
West Indies. Passing across the Gulf of Mexico, it enters over Texas, and
Louisiana, and the other southern states; its western edge passing north
in autumn and winter, on the eastern side of