is severe in winter.  Much snow falls, and the thermometer often marks from ten to fifteen degrees of frost.  From time to time there are furious gales, and, as the spring advances, a good deal of wet falls; but the summer and autumn are almost rainless.  The heat towards midday is often considerable, but it is tempered by cool winds, and even at the worst is not relaxing.  The variations of temperature are great in the twenty-four hours, and the climate is, so far, trying; but, on the whole, it seems to be neither disagreeable nor unhealthy.

A climate resembling that of the Deshtistan prevailed along the entire southern coast of the Empire, from the mouth of the Tigris to that of the Indus.  It was exchanged in the lower valleys of the great streams for a damp close heat, intolerably stifling and oppressive.  The upper valleys of these streams and the plains into which they expanded were at once less hot and less moist, but were subject to violent storms, owing to the near vicinity of the mountains.  In the mountains themselves, in Armenia and Zagros, and again in the Elburz, the climate was of a more rigorous character—­intensely cold in winter, but pleasant in the summer time. [Plate XXVII., Fig. 3.] Asia Minor enjoyed generally a warmer climate than the high mountain regions; and its western and southern coasts, being fanned by fresh breezes from the sea, or from the hills of the interior, and cooled during the whole of the summer by frequent showers, were especially charming.  In Syria and Egypt the heats of summer were somewhat trying, more especially in the Ghor or depressed Jordan valley, and in the parts of Egypt adjoining on Ethiopia; but the winters were mild, and the springs and autumns delightful.  The rarity of rain in Egypt was remarkable, and drew the attention of foreigners, who recorded, in somewhat exaggerated terms, the curious meteorological phenomenon.  In the Cyrenaica there was a delicious summer climate—­an entire absence of rain, with cool breezes from the sea, cloudy skies, and heavy dews at night, these last supplying the moisture which through the whole of summer covered the ground with the freshest and loveliest verdure.  The autumn and winter rains were, however, violent; and terrific storms were at that time of no unusual occurrence.  The natives regarded it as a blessing, that over this part of Africa the sky was “pierced,” and allowed moisture to fall from the great reservoir of “waters above the firmament;” but the blessing must have seemed one of questionable value at the time of the November monsoon, when the country is deluged with rain for several weeks in succession.