4. Daymán (in Kisawahili Daymáni) ends the Kausi or S. W. monsoon, and extends through August and part of October. Though the sun is nearly perpendicular the air is cooled by strong south-westerly breezes. At this time yams, manioc, and sweet potatoes grow, making it a second spring, whilst the harvest of rice and holcus assimilates it to the temperate autumn.
5. The Vuli (Fuli)[[42]] or Msika Mdogo, second rains or Little Msika. This season lasts but three weeks, beginning shortly after the sun has crossed the zenith of Zanzibar in the southern declination, and embracing part of October and November. It is not considered a healthy time by the islanders. The autumnal rains are sometimes wanting upon the continent, and the land then suffers as severely from drought as northern Syria does when the ‘former rain’ fails. After the Vuli recommences the Kaskazi, and the N. E. trade again blows. The sun is distant, the thermometer does not range high, yet the temperature of houses sheltered from the breeze becomes overpowering, and without the ‘doctor’ the city would hardly be habitable. At times the Trade freshens to a gale that blows through the day. The Hindus suffer severely from this ‘Báorá’ (blast), and declare that it brings on fits of ‘Mridi’ (refroidissement), here held dangerous. During the whole of the Azyab monsoon the people prefer hot sun and a clear, which is always a slightly hazy-blue, sky. They dislike the clouds and heavy showers called Mvua[[43]] ya ku pandia, or harvest rains, which are brought up at times by the N. N. West wind. On the other hand, when the Kausi or S. West monsoon blows, they hold an overcast sky the best for health, and they dread greatly the ‘rain-sun.’ The peasants take advantage of the dryness, and prepare, by burning, the land for maize, sesamum, and rice.
The Wasawahili, like the Somal and many other races, have attempted to conform the lunar with the solar year, a practice which may date from the days when the Persians were rulers of the Zanzibar coast. They also give their own names to the lunar months of the Moslem; and, curiously enough, they begin the year, not with Muharram, but with the ninth month (Shaw wal), which they call ‘Mfunguo Mosi,’ or First Month. The next, Zu’l Ka’adeh, is Mfunguo Mbili, Second Month, and so on till Rajah, Shaa’-ban (or Mlisho) and Ramazan, which retain their Arab names.[[44]] Amongst the Somal, five months, namely, from the second to the fifth, are known by the old Semitic terms. The month, as amongst all savage and semi-civilized tribes, begins with sighting the moon; and the Wasawahili reckon like the Jews, the modern Moslems, and the Chinese, 12 of 29 and 30 days alternately. ‘The complete number of months with God’ being, says the Koran, ‘twelve months,’ good followers of the Prophet ignore the Ve-adar, second or embolical Adar, which the Hebrews inserted after every third year, and retain their silly cycle of 354 days. The Wasawahili add 10 to 12 days to the Moslem year, and thus preserve the orderly recurrence of the seasons. The sage in charge of the local almanac is said to live at Tumbatu: he finds his New Year’s Day by looking at the sun, by tracing figures upon the ground, and by comparing the results with Arabic calendars. Their weeks begin, as usual with Moslems, on Friday (Ejúmá for Juma), the Saturday being Juma Mosi, or one day after Friday, and so forth. Thursday, however, is Khamisi. This subdivision of time, though suggested by the quarters of the earth’s satellite, is known only to societies which have advanced toward civilization. Thus in Dahome we find a week of four days; and even China ignores the seven-day week.
‘The universal festivals,’ says the late Professor H. H. Wilson (Essays on the Religion of the Hindus, ii. 155), ‘are manifestly astronomical, and are intended to commemorate the revolutions of the planets, the alternations of the seasons, and the recurrence of cyclical intervals of longer or shorter duration.’ The Nau-roz (نوروز) or New Year’s Day, here, as in Syria, locally pronounced Nay-roz, was established in ancient Ariana, according to Persian tradition, by Jamshid, King of Kings, in order to fix the vernal equinox.[[45]] It is the Holi of the Hindus, and after the East has kept this most venerable festival for 3000 years, we still unconsciously celebrate the death and resurrection of the eternal sun-god. The Beal-tinne is not yet forgotten in Leinster, nor is the maypole wholly obsolete in England. As early as the days of the Kuraysh, there was an attempt to reconcile the lunar with the solar year, and the Nau-roz, though palpably of Pagan origin, has been adopted by all the maritime peoples professing El Islam. Even the heathen-hating Arab borrowed it for his convenience from the Dualists and Trinitarians of Fars and Hindustan. Hence the æras called Kadmi and Jelali. In this second solar æra the Nau-roz was transferred by the new calendar from the vernal equinox to Sept. 14, A.D. 1079, and was called Nau-roz i Mízán (نوروز مِنران). Amongst the Wasawahili it is known as Siku Khu ya Mwáká, the Great Day of the year.
For the purpose of a stable date, necessary both to agriculture and to navigation, and also for the determination of the monsoons, the people who ignore the embolismal month, and who have no months for the solar year, add, I have said, 10 to 12 days to each lunar year, the true difference being 16 days 9 hrs. 0 min. and 11·7 secs. Thus the contrivance is itself rude; moreover the Wasawahili often miscalculate it. Between A.D. 1829 and A.D. 1879, it would fall on 28-29 August. In 1844 they made it commence at 6 p. m., August 28, immediately after full moon: in 1850-2 they began it on August 27, and in 1856 on[on] August 26.[[46]]
Sundry quasi superstitious uses are made of the 10 embolismal days following the Nau-roz. Should rains—locally called Miongo—fall on the first day, showers are prognosticated for the tenth; if on the second, the twentieth will be wet; and so forth till the tenth, which if rainy suggests that the Kausi or S.W. monsoon will set in early. The seasons of navigation are thus reckoned. The Vuli rains are supposed to begin 30 days, counting from the twentieth, after Nauroz. On the eightieth (some say the ninetieth) day are expected thunder, lightning, and heavy rains at the meeting of the monsoons (mid-November), and so forth. Possibly this may be a reflection of the Hindu idea which represents the Garbhas to be the fetuses of the clouds, and born 195 days after conception. With us the people mark the periods by saints’ days. The Bernais say—
Après le jour de la Sainte Luce,
Les jours s’allongent le saut d’une puce.
The Escuara proverb declares—
Sanct Seimon etu Juda,