It will be seen from the table below that there has been one year only during the last nine in which the rainfall came up to or exceeded twenty-five inches, which is about the English average: 1877, 13.58 inches; 1878, 9.34; 1879, 19.38; 1880, 15.43; 1881, 30.30; 1882, 14.77; 1883, 13.63; 1884, 20.46, and 73 days on which rain fell; 1885, 9.77, and 74 days on which rain fell.

In some months no rain falls at all. The following is a tabulated list of the months, during the last eight years, in which this has occurred: June, 1877; June, 1878; October, 1879; July, 1880; August, 1880; September, 1880; July, 1881; September, 1881; June, 1883; December, 1883; July, 1884; August, 1884; July, 1885.

During the year 1885 there were ninety-two days on which lightning was seen, seventy-four on which dew fell, two hundred and eighty-eight days on which there were clouds, and seven days on which ice was seen, although in the outskirts of Kimberley ice was much more frequent. I have given monthly returns in the accompanying table:

1885CloudsDewLightningIce
January27days1100
February26„7200
March26„2140
April24„1650
May23„910
June13„910
July17„100
August25„436
September26„551
October27„180
November26„0150
December28„0200
288 74927

The barometric pressure for the year 1883 appears to have been at its maximum in June, in which month the reading was 26.177 inches, and the minimum, which was 25.849 inches, occurred in January, while the mean for the year was 25.988 inches. All these readings are corrected to 32° F.

The heat experienced in Griqualand West is sometimes very excessive, when I state that the maximum summer heat of the day in the shade during the months of November and December was in the year 1883, 107°, in 1884, 102°, and last year 104°, whilst during the month of December, 1885, the ordinary bright bulb thermometer in the sun attained the height of 116.25°, and the blackened bulb in vacuo 174.6°, my readers may form some idea of the great range of temperature to which residents are exposed, especially if they contrast this with the minimum during the winter months, July and August, of 26° in 1884, and of 28.25° in 1885. At the same time it is interesting to note that the highest mean of absolute maximum temperature was 78.98° in December and the absolute minimum 52.52° in June. I have often conversed on this subject with one of the early Vaal River diggers, who told me that in September, 1870, he several times found the thermometer in his tent in the early morning standing at 32°, and at mid-day registering 112°, and on one occasion in 1870 it was as low as 17°.

KIMBERLEY MINE—MIDDLE STAGE, 1875.

In the winter there is a great difference between the temperature upon the grass and that upon the bare soil. Wagoners are fully aware of this, for when on a cold, frosty night their oxen go astray, they look for them upon roads, or bare patches of ground, as they know where the instinct of the animals will lead them, the oxen appearing intuitively to know that the grass favors radiation and causes intense cold. I have often indeed known the temperature on the grass to be as low as 16°, or even 13°, when the temperature on the bare ground around was above freezing point. Any one living near the diamond mines can relate the scores of cases in which natives during the last ten years have lain down upon the veldt (grass) to sleep away their drunken carousals, and have been found stiff and dead in the morning.

Although “Afric’s sunny fountains” (comparatively few in number, however, on our high plateau) have, in good old Bishop Heber’s beautiful hymn, “rolled down their golden sand,” yet visitors who come out under the belief that pajamas, mosquito nets, and the lightest silken gossamers, etc., are sufficient to keep out the cold, would be astonished to find, as they might do, from time to time, pea-jacketed and ulstered individuals of varying ages heartily enjoying games of snowball under the supposed burning sun.