Entrance of the Governor’s Villa; they thrive extreemly well, and the Bark not inferior to our Cinnamon from India; why they and other Spice, in a Soil ſo proper, receive no farther Cultivation, is, probably, their Suſpicion, that ſo rich a Produce, might make ſome potent Neighbour take a Fancy to the Iſland.
They have two Winters, or rather Springs, and two Summers: Their Winters, which are the rainy Seaſons, come in September and February, or March, and hold two Months, returning that Fatneſs and generative Power to the Earth, as makes it yield a double Crop every Year, with little Sweat or Labour.
Hic Ver Aſſiduum atque Alienis Menſibus Æſtas
Bis gravidæ Pecudes, bis Pomis utilis arbos.
Their firſt coming is with Travado’s, i. e. ſudden and hard Guſts of Wind, with Thunder, Lightning and heavy Showers, but ſhort; and the next new or full Moon at thoſe Times of the Year, infallibly introduces the Rains, which once begun, fall with little Intermiſſion, and are obſerved coldeſt in February. Similar to theſe are rainy Seaſons alſo over all the Coaſt of Africa: If there may be allowed any general Way of calculating their Time, they happen from the Courſe of the Sun, as it reſpects the Æquinoctial only; for if theſe Æquinoxes prove rainy Seaſons all over the World (as I am apt to think they are) whatever ſecret Cauſe operates with that Station of the Sun to produce them, will more effectually do it in thoſe vicine Latitudes; and therefore, as the Sun advances, the Rains are brought on the Whydah and Gold Coaſt, by April, and on the Windwardmoſt Part of Guiney by May: The other Seaſon of the Sun’s returning to the Southward, make them more uncertain and irregular in Northern Africa; but then to the Southward
