Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/250

202 WEST AFRICA. day ; but the whole coast lies beyond the influence of the regular trade winds, and Freetown lies altogether in the zone of monsoons, calms, and variable winds. The harmattan from the Sahara prevails for a few days in December and January, bringing with it the impalpable dust of the desert. The rainfall is heavier on the Sierra-Leone coast than in any other part of West Africa, although varying to a surprising extent from year to year, falling, for instance, from 320 inches in 1829 to less than 40 in 1858. A mean of nine years gives for Freetown about 134 inches, while exceptional downpours have been recorded of 4, or even 8, inches in the twenty-four hours. During these heavy rains, hail not unfrequently falls on the tops of the mountains. The wet season begins generally early in May, or a month sooner than in Senegal, and is usually ushered in with a few local cyclones, caused by the clash of opposing winds. Despite its relatively moderate temperature, the climate of Sierra-Leone is one of the most deadly in the world, and of the whole region the cajDital is the most dangerous as a residence for Europeans. In the neighbourhood are some still undrained marshy tract^s, while muddy banks are left exposed at every tide. The poisonous exhalations rising from these places are confined as in a cauldron by the vast amphitheatre of hills encircling the bay. Even on the slopes the nature of the soil contributes to the insalubrity of the climate during the rainy season. The water absorbed by the ferruginous sandstones is rapidly evaporated, filling the atmosphere with heavy dank vapours, like those of a hothouse for* tropical plants. On arriving in the bay the European admires the picturesque form of the hills, the exuberant vegetation, the lovely shores of the gulf, ramifying in creeks and narrows ; but he cannot shake off the ominous impression caused by the expres- sion, "White man's grave," commonly applied to the country; and he also remem- bers that the cruisers employed to suppress the slave-trade in these waters were known as the " Coffin Squadron." Epidemics of yellow fever are frequent, generally sweeping off a third or even a half of the whites unable to escape in time, or compelled by their duties to remain in the country. Some medical men even assert that this scourge is endemic in Sierra-Leone, and that the peninsula is the hotbed of the epidemics that at times ravage the Senegambian regions. The mortality of the English officers stationed at Freetown rises occasionally to one-half, and in 1881 it exceeded a third for all Europeans, although most of them occupy well-ventilated houses on the slope or crest of the hills, and seldom expose themselves to the pestiferous miasmas of the early morning. The black troops constituting the colonial military force suffer far more than the European garrisons, and the vital statistics for the whole population show a continual increase of mortality over the birth-rate, amounting to 1,248 for the five years ending in 1875. Animals introduced from the north, as well as horses imported from the interior of the continent, perish rapidly. European dogs take the fever like their masters, while animals which resist undergo great transformations. All lambs are born with black heads, which may perhaps be a return to a primitive type ; dogs change their coats, lengthen their ears, and cease to bark, while cats turn grey and acquire longer jaws and legs.