night. From November to April a ihower of rain fcarcely
ever falls.
The barometer ftands higher in the clear cold days of winter
than in the fettled ferene weather o f fummer. The height of
the column of mercury varies, in the former feafon, from 29,46
to 3°>35 inches, one point indicating a. ftorm with rain, thunder,
and lightning; and the other, fettled fair weather. The
changeable point is about 29,95 or 3° inches. The greateft
range being only 89 hundred parts of an inch, the flighteft
alteration in the ftate o f the barometer is fure to indicate a
change of weather. The range o f the mercury, in the fummer
feafon, is ftill lefs, being fcarcely ever above 30,10, or below
29>74 inches. The fouth-eaft gales o f wind feldom occafion a
change of more than 15 hundred parts o f an inch. Happy for
the inhabitants o f Cape Town that by thefe winds a conftant
circulation o f the air is kept up during the fummer months,
without which the reflected heat from the naked front o f the
Table Mountain would make the town infupportable.
Moft o f the fatal difeafes that prevail among the natives
ihould appear to proceed rather from their habits o f life than
from any real unhealthinefs in the climate. Nothing could
afford a ftronger proof o f this eonelufion than the circumftance
o f there not having been one fick man in the general military
hofpital for feveral months, and not more than a hundred in
the regimental hofpitals out of five thoufand troops ; and thefe
according to the reports of the furgeons, were complaints generally
brought on by too free an ufe of the wines and fpirituous
liquors
liquors of the country, o f which their pay enables them to
procure an excefs. The fudden change o f temperature, efpe-
cially from heat to cold, may perhaps be one of the caufes of
confumptive complaints which are very frequent in all claffeS
and ages. But the common difeafe to which thofe of the
middle age are fubjeCt, is the dropfy. A confined and feden-
tary life ; eating to excefs, twice and commonly thrice a-day,
of animal food fwimming in fat, or made up into high-feafoned
diihes ; drinking raw ardent fpirits; fmoking tobacco ; and,
when fatiated with indulging the fenfual appetite, retiring in
the middle of the day to fleep ; feldom ufing any kind of exer-
cife, and never fuch as might require bodily exertion,— are the
ufiial habits in which a native of the Cape is educated. An
apoplexy or a fchirrous liver ate the confequences of fuch
intemperance. The former is feldom attended with immediate
diffolution on account of the languid ftate of the conftitution ;
but it generally terminates in a dropfy, which ihortly proves
fatal. The difeafes to which children are moft fubjeft are
eruptions of different kinds, and fore throats. Neither the
fmall-pox nor the meafles are endemic ; the former has made
its appearance but twice or thrice fince the eftabliihment of the
Colony, but the latter has found its way much more frequently.
Great caution has always been ufed by the government againft
their being introduced by foreign ihips calling at the Cape. In-
ftances of longevity are very rare, few exceeding the period of
fixty years. The mortality in Cape Town, taken on the average
in the laft eight years, has been about two and a half in a hundred
among the white inhabitants, and under three in a hundred
among the flaves. Thofe in the latter condition, who live in the
G 2 tow n ,