climate

"It would be impossible to convey to any one who has never been in the tropical climate the beauty, the luxury of such a scene; at such an hour, the air becomes so pure and balmy, the atmosphere so highly rarefied, the moon and stars shine with a brilliance unknown in our hemisphere. The most slender leaf seen between you and the deep blue sky is accurately defined; the waving boughs of the coca [coconut?] that seem at intervals to stir from some internal impulse are so beautifully contrasted with the thick foliage of the mango, glossy as the holly tree. The hum of grasshoppers is ceaseless, and the banyan trees are white with doves whose soft note is perpetually heard. The glorious sun is now above the horizon…it is difficult to describe such a morning in downright prose, unless it were that of Walter Scott’s novels…"

"I sat down to give you an account of the weather and climate, which insensibly led me to the consequences of it: every thing but cold is in extremes here, the heat is intense, the rains floods, the winds hurricanes, and the hailstones I dare not tell you how large, lest you should think I have the licence of a traveller. But what I always hold with reverence and awe and at the same time with pleasure, is the lightning; not an evening passes without it; it is not that offensive glare of light I have been used to see, but a beautiful fire, which plays amongst the clouds, and passes from one part of the heavens to another in every direction, and in every variety of vibration."