Chapter VIII: Section 2

Meteorological Notes—The Double Seasons, &c.

The characteristic of meteorology at Zanzibar, as generally the case in the narrow equatorial zone, is the extreme irregularity of its phenomena. Here weather seems to be all in confusion; hardly two consequent years resemble each other. In 1853-4, for instance, the seasons, if they may so be called, were apparently inverted; heavy showers fell during the dries, and a drought occupied the place of the wet monsoon. Sometimes the rains will begin with, this year (1857) they ended with, a heavy burst. Now April is a fine month, then the downfall will last through June.

I may also remark one great difference of climate between the eastern and western coasts of intertropical Africa. Whilst Zanzibar is supersatured with moisture, Angola, on the same parallel, is a comparatively dry, sandy, and sunburnt region. Kilwa, upon the eastern coast, and in S. lat. 8° 57′, is damp and steamy. S. Paulo de Loanda, upon the opposite shore (S. lat. 8° 48′), suffers from want of water. We find the same contrast in the South American continent. The middle Brazil is emphatically a land of rains, whilst Peru and Chili require artificial irrigation supplied by melted snow. Evidently the winds charged with moisture, the N. E. and S. E. trades and their modifications, discharge themselves upon the windward sides of continents, especially when these are fringed with cold sierras, which condense the vapour and render the interior a lee land.

In 1847 the Geographical Society of Bombay sent a barometer to Zanzibar, and requested that a meteorological register might be kept. Their wishes were not immediately carried into effect; but after a time the Eurasian apothecary in charge of the Consulate filled up in a rude way during nine months a weather-book, with observations of the barometer, of two thermometers attached and unattached, of wet and dry bulbs, of evaporation and of rainfall. In the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (xxiii. of 1853), Colonel Sykes published a ‘record, kept during eleven months in 1850, of the indications of several intertropical instruments at Zanzibar,’ unhappily without those of pressure.[38]

The result of nine months’ observations is that the thermometer shows a remarkably limited range of temperature and an extreme variation of only 18°-19°. A storm, however, will make the mercury fall rapidly through 6°-7°. The climate is far more temperate than the inexperienced expect to find so near the equator. It is within the limits of the true Trades. The land and sea breezes laden with cool moisture blow regularly, and the excessive humidity spreads a heat-absorbing steam-cloud between sun and earth. The medium temperature of January is 83° 30′; of February, the hottest month, 85° 86′ (according to Colonel Sykes 83° 40′); and of March, 82° 50′. This high and little-varying mean then gradually declines till July, the coolest month (77° 10′). The mean average of the year is 79° 15′-90′. In September and October the climate has been compared with that of southern Europe. On the other hand, the atmosphere supports an amount of moisture unknown to the dampest parts of India.

The barometer, so near the equator, is almost uniformly sluggish and quiescent. Its range diurnal and annual is here at a min. It seldom, except under varying pressure of storms or tornadoes, rises or falls above or below 30 inches at sea level, and a few tenths represent the max. variation. It must be observed, however, on both coasts of Africa, within 6°-7° of the Line, this instrument requires especial study for nautical purposes. Here it is an imperfect indicator, because, affected from great distances, it rises without fine weather and it falls without foul. At Zanzibar the case of a whaling captain is quoted for wasting in vain precautions nearly two months. Moreover, sufficient observations have not yet been accumulated in the southern hemisphere. Where there is so little expansion in the mercurial column the convexity and concavity of the column-head must be carefully examined with a magnifying-glass, and by a reflecting instrument the smallest change could be correctly measured. The trembling of the aneroid needle, sometimes ranging through a whole inch during the gusts of the highly electrical tornado, also calls for observation. The sympiesometer is held to be even more sensitive than the mercurial barometer, especially before storms, and ignorance of its peculiarity has often ‘frightened a reef in’ at unseasonable times. The same was found to be the case, in high latitudes, by Lieut. Robertson, R.N., when sailing under Captain Ross (1818), between N. lat. 51° 39′ and 76° 50′.

Observations with the altitude and azimuth determined the variation of the needle in 1857 to be between 9°-10° (W.). If this be correct, it is gradually easting. In 1823 Captain Owen found it to be 11° 7′ (W.).[39] So, upon the opposite coast, the variation laid down in our charts of 1846 as 20° (W.) has gradually declined to between 18° 30′ and 19° (W.).

Of exceptional meteoric phenomena I can speak only from hearsay, no written records existing upon the island. A single earthquake is remembered. In the early rains of 1846, at about 4 P.M., a shock, accompanied by a loud rumbling sound, ran along the city sea-front, splitting the Sayyid’s palace, the adjacent mosque, and the side-walls of the British Consulate, in. a direction perpendicular to the town. It was probably the result of igneous disturbance below the coralline, and it tends to prove that the island was originally an atoll: some, however, have explained it by a land-slip. Three meteors are known since 1843. In December of that year a ball of fire was visible from windows facing the north; it disappeared without a report. The most remarkable was a bolis, which, about 6 P.M. on October 25, 1855, took a N.W. by W. path, burned during ten or eleven minutes, and frightened the superstitious burghers into fits. Water-spouts commonly appear during the month of April, and in the direction of the mainland: the people disperse them by firing guns.

Frost and snow are of course unheard of at Zanzibar, and hail, not uncommon in the interior, never (?) falls upon the island or the coast. During the wet season generally, especially when the heats are greatest, the hills of Terrafirma are veiled with clouds, and sheet-lightning plays over the horizon. The islanders assure the stranger that storms of thunder and lightning are rare, and that few accidents happen from the electric fluid. M. Alfred May, for instance, declares that thunder is heard only three or four times a year. The same is said in West African Yoruba, in parts of the Brazil, and even in Northern Syria—Damascus, for instance. It would be curious to inquire what produces this uniform immunity under climatic conditions so different. At Zanzibar, however, the phenomenon is irregular as the seasons. I was told of several deaths by the ‘thunderbolt,’ and in the year 1857 the S.W. monsoon was ushered in almost daily by a tempest. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamerton, when sailing about the island, lost by lightning his Baloch Sarhang (boatswain); he himself felt a blow upon the shoulder like that of a falling block. No blood appeared upon the side, but it was livid to the hip, and for some days the patient was decidedly ‘shaky.’ Some explained his escape by his wearing flannel; others by his standing near the davits of a longboat, which were twisted like wax by the electric fluid.

The mainlands of Zanzibar and of Mozambique are subject, as might be expected, to tornados, which much resemble those of the West African coast. Accompanying the formation and the dispersion of the nimbus, they are often violent enough to wreck small craft. Caught in a fine specimen, I was able to observe all the normal phenomena,—the building up of the warning arch, the white eye or gleam under the soffit, the wind blowing off shore, the apparent periodicity of throbs, and the frantic rage of the short-lived squall. The cyclones and hurricanes of the East Indian Islands rarely extend to Zanzibar. During 14 years there was but one tourbillon strong enough to uproot a cocoa-tree. It passed over the city about midnight, overthrowing the Mábandani or roof-sheds, and it was followed by a burst of rain. Colonel Sykes (loco cit.) remarks, philosophically explaining the why, ‘Another peculiar feature in the climatology of Zanzibar is that there is seldom any dew experienced.’ The reverse is the case, as might be known by the strength of the nightly radiation. Captain Guillain (i. 2, 72) declares that the rosées which accompany the rains are sufficient for watering the ground, and observes (p. 94), I presume concerning those who remain in the open air, ‘Rester à terre entre huit heurs du soir et le lever du soleil c’est s’exposer à une mort très probable, sinon certaine.’ The sunset, never followed by twilight, is accompanied by a sudden coolness which, as in equatorial, and even sub-tropical regions generally, causes a rapid precipitation of vapour. The dews are cold and clammy, and the morning shows large beads in horizontal streaks of moisture on perpendicular surfaces. I often remarked the deposition of dew when light winds were blowing; of course it did not stand in drops, but it wetted the clothing. This I believe is an exception to the general rule. At sunset the old stager will not sit or walk in the open air, although, as in Syria, he will expose himself to it at nine or ten p. m., when the night has acquired its normal temperature. As in the west coast squadron, so here, there is an order that all men on deck after sunset must wear their blanket-coats and trowsers, and many an unfortunate sailor has lost his life by sleeping in the streets, thus allowing the dew to condense upon his body while under the influence of liquor. Experienced travellers have taught themselves, even in the hottest seasons of the hottest equinoctial regions, to air the hut with a ‘bit of fire’ before sundown and sunrise, and it is doubtless an excellent precaution against ‘chills.’

Zanzibar Island, lying in S. lat. 6°, has the sun in zenith twice a year: the epochs being early March and October; more exactly, March 4 and October 9. Hence it has two distinct summers; the first in February, the second in September. It has double rains; the ‘Great Masika’ in April to June, and the ‘Little Masika’ in October to November. It has two winters; the shorter in December, and in July the longer, which is much more marked than the former. There are only three months of N.E. trade (Azyab)[40] to nine of S.E. and S.W. (Kausi). The regularity of these seasons is broken by a variety of local causes, and there is ever, I repeat, the normal instability of equinoctial climates. Theory appears often at fault upon these matters. A fair instance is Mr Cooley’s assertion, that about Kilima-njaro the ‘rainy season is also the hot season.’ Theoretically, of course, the period of the sun’s northing and of the great rains should be, north of the equator, the hot season; but where tropical downfalls are heavy, the excessive humidity intercepting the solar rays, and the valleys and swamps refrigerated by the torrents, make the rainy season the cold weather. From June to September the natives of Fernando Po (N. lat. 4°) die, like those of eastern intertropical Africa, of catarrh, quinsey, and rheumatism. Even in India the Goanese call the rains ‘o inverno,’ and Abba Gregorius makes the wet weather the winter of Abyssinia. About Kilima-njaro the hot and dry season opens with the end and closes with the beginning of the hot monsoon.

The natives of Zanzibar distribute the year into five seasons. A far simpler division here applicable, as in Western India, is made by those local trades the monsoons, between whose two unequal lengths are long intervals of calms and of variable winds. These are the Mausim or N.E. monsoon, and the Hippalus or S.W.

1. The Kaskazi or Kazkazi (vulgarly Kizkazi), to which the Arabs limit the term El Mausim (Monsoon), is _the_ season during which the Azyab (ازيب) or N.E. trade blows. The wind begins about mid-November; from mid-December to mid-February its strength is greatest, and it usually ends about mid-March. In 1857, however, the Kaskazi opened with light showers, and continued in full force till March 24; usually the last vessels from Cutch and Bombay enter port about March 10. This is the first of the two hot seasons, and midsummer may be placed in February and March. A fine, cool sea-breeze from the N.E. usually prevails between 8 a.m. and late in the afternoon. When it is absent the weather is sultry and oppressive, the northerner feels suffocated; the least exertion brings on profuse perspiration, and the cuticular irritation produces boils and ‘prickly heat.’ The nights are close and stifling enough to banish rest and sleep. As has been shown, the thermometer does not stand high, but the frequent flashes of sheet-lightning playing over the northern and western sky show a surcharge of electricity. The public health would suffer severely but for the frequent cooling showers which, especially at the end of the Kaskazi, are succeeded by several days of pleasant weather. This is the agriculturist’s spring. Sesamum, holcus, rice, and other cereals, are sown upon lands previously burned for manure. It is the traveller’s opportunity for visiting the interior of the island and the worst parts of the coast, but—‘bad is the best.’

2. The Msika (or Másika) Mku, Greater rain or rains. About the end of March the change of monsoon is ushered in by heavy squalls from the S.E. and by tornados blowing off land. Presently the Hippalus breaks, and extends from early May into October. In May native craft make India after a run of 20 to 25 days; after the end of August they rarely attempt the voyage. This Kausi or Hippalus is usually called S.W. monsoon, but it has mostly an eastern deflection, possibly modified by the westerly land-breezes. The Arabs divide it, as will be seen, into three portions. First, the Kaus proper,[41] in Kisawahili Kausi (قوسی), from mid-April to early August, the period of the greatest strength. Second, Kipupwe or first winter—July and early August; and third, the Dayman, which ends the Kausi.

Presently appear the rains which have followed the northing sun. The same observation was made by the Austrian mission on the White River in N. lat. 4° 30′. On the coast we can distinctly trace their progress. In 1857 the downfall began in Feb. 15, at Usumbara (S. lat. 5°), where the clouds are massed and condensed by a high plateau, leading to lofty, snow-capped mountains. In 1854 I found that the rainy season opened at Berberah of the Somal (N. lat. 10° 25′) on April 15; and in early June they reach Bombay (N. lat. 18° 53′). Concerning the movement of the wet season in inner intertropical Africa I have already written in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (xxix. 207).

The heaviest rains at Zanzibar Island begin the wet season about mid- April, and last 30 to 40 days; they do not end, however, till early June. Some observers remark that the fall is greatest at low water and during the ebb-tides of the Syzygies. It is, however, rare to have a week of uninterrupted rain, as in eastern India and sometimes in the Brazil. The discharge is exceedingly uncertain. Some years number 85 inches, others 108. During the first eight months of 1857 and the last four months of 1858, we find a total of 120·21 inches. In 1859 it reached 167, doubling the average of Bombay (76·55), and nearly trebling that of Calcutta (56·83). We may compare these figures with those of Europe and the United States. England has 31·97 inches; France, 25·00; Central Germany, 20·00; Hungary, 16·93; Boston, 38·19 (about the same at Beyrut in Syria); Philadelphia, 45·00; and St Louis, Mo., 31·97. Of these 167 inches (1859), 104·25 fell during the Msika Mku. The number of wet days ranges from 100 to 130 per annum. According to the people, rain has diminished of late years; perhaps it is the result of felling cocoas, and of disforesting the land for cloves. In 1857, the Great Msika was preceded by a few days of oppressive heat, which ended (March 24) in a highly electrical storm, like those which usher in the rains of western India, and suddenly the cool S.W. began to blow. For some time we had daily showers, now from the N.E., then from the S.W., with high winds and loud thunderings; the rains, however, did not show in earnest before April 10.

The islanders like the Msika to open with showers strong enough to bind the land, but not so violent as to carry off the manure deposited by the year’s decayed vegetation. After this the water should fall in heavy ropy torrents, with occasional breaks of sunshine and fine weather; when this lasts thirty days, and is succeeded by frequent showers, good crops are expected. The downfall is heavier in the interior of the island than about the city, which, situated upon a point, escapes many a drenching. It must, however, be borne in mind that the phenomena of the rains, like those of the sea and air, are essentially irregular. In some seasons there will be only half-a-dozen rainy afternoons; in others as many rainy mornings. There are years of great drought, and there are seasons when the sun does not appear for six weeks in succession. Usually heavy rain is not expected after 11 A.M., and showers are rare after 2 P.M. As I subsequently remarked in the east African interior—the Fluminenses of the Brazil still preserve the tradition—there is a curious regularity and periodicity in the hours of downfall, often extending over many days. This phenomenon may have done much towards creating the ‘rain- doctor.’

During the Msika the horizon is obscured, dangerously indeed for ships: the wind veers round to every point of the compass; the sky is murky and overcast; huge purple nimbi, like moving mountains, float majestically against the wind, showing strong counter-currents in the upper aërial regions. From afar the island appears smothered in blue mist, and often the cloudrock splits into two portions, one of which makes for the coast. Even during the rare days of sunshine the distances, owing to the continuous humidity, are rarely clear, and the exhalations make refraction extensive. A high tension of vapour is the rule. For the first three hours after sunrise the land is often obscured by ‘smokes,’ a white misty fog, often deepening to a drizzling rain; this lasts until 10 A.M., about which time the sea-breeze begins to blow.

The Msika is much feared by the native population, and the interior of the island becomes a hot-bed of disease. The animal creation seems to breathe as much water as air. The want of atmospheric weight, and consequently of pressure upon the surface of the body, renders the circulation sluggish, robs man of energy, and makes him feel how much better is sleep than waking. Europeans, speaking from effect, complain that the ‘heavy’ air produces an unnatural drowsiness—it is curious to see how many of our popular books make humidity increase the weight of the atmospheric column. During this season the dews of sunset are deemed especially fatal to foreigners. At times the body feels cold and clammy when the thermometer suggests that it should be perspiring: super- saturation is drawing off the vital heat. The lungs are imperfectly oxygenized, and, in general belief, positive is exchanged for negative electricity. The hair and skin are dank and sodden; indeed, a dry cutis is an unattainable luxury. Iron oxydizes with astonishing rapidity; shoes exposed to the air soon fall to pieces; mirrors are clouded with steam; paper runs and furniture sweats; the houses leak; books and papers are pasted together; ink is covered with green fur; linens and cottons grow mouldy, and broadcloths stiffen and become boardy.

This excess of damp is occasionally varied by the extreme of dryness. The hot wind represents the Khamasin of Egypt, the Sharki (or Sh’luk) of Syria, the Harmattan of west Africa, and the Norte of the southern Brazil, Paraguay, and the Argentine Confederation. At such times the air apparently abounds in oxygen and in ozone. Cotton cloth feels hard and crisp; even the water is cooled by the prodigious evaporation. Books and papers curl up and crack, and strangers are apt to suffer from nausea and fainting fits.

3. The Kipupwe, first winter or cold season—July and early August. The bright azure of the sky, the surpassing clearness of the water, and the lively green colours of the land, are not what we associate with the idea of the ‘disease of the year.’ The Kausi or S.W. monsoon still blows, but in this second or post-pluvial phase its strength is diminished. As on the western coast the mornings are misty, the effect of condensation and of excessive evaporation, the sun pumping up vapour from the rapidly desiccating ground; but about four hours after sunrise a strong sea-breeze sets in, giving a little life and elasticity to the exhausted frame. When the ‘doctor’ fails the heat is oppressive, and the sunsets are often accompanied by an unpleasant closeness. The beginning of the Kipupwe is held to be universally sickly. The Hindus, who declare that all cold coming from the south is bad, suffer from attacks of rheumatism and pneumonia. The charms of the season induce Europeans to despise the insidious attacks of malaria: they commit imprudences and pay for them in severe fevers. The rare but heavy showers that now fall are termed ‘Mcho;’ they separate the greater from the lesser Msika.

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 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,
Negua eldu da.
(‘At St Simon and St Jude, water may be viewed.’)

The basis of the following calculation is thoroughly Kisawahili—

S’el pleut le jour de Saint Médard, (June 8)
Il pleut quarante jours plus tard.

Nor is our popular doggrel less so—

Saint Swithin’s Day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain.
Saint Swithin’s Day, if thou be fair,
For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.

The Wasawahili also calculate their agricultural seasons from the stars called Kilímia, a name probably derived from Ku lima, to plough. I believe them to be Pleiades, but my sudden departure from the coast prevented my making especial inquiries. When this constellation is in the west at night the peasants say, ‘Kilímia, if it sets during the rains, rises in fair weather,’ and vice versâ. Also Kilímia appearing in the east is a signal for the agriculturist to prepare his land.