The Gaboon lies in "Africa-on-the-Line," and a description of the
year at Zanzibar Island applies to it in many points.[FN#6] The
characteristic of this equatorial belt is uniformity of
temperature: whilst the Arabian and the Australian deserts often
show a variation of 50deg. Fahr. in a single day, the yearly range
of the mercury at Singapore is about 10deg.. The four seasons of the
temperates are utterly unknown to the heart of the tropics--even
in Hindostan the poet who would sing, for instance, the charms of
spring must borrow the latter word (Buhar) from the Persian. If
the "bull" be allowed, the only rule here appears to be one of
exceptions. The traveller is always assured that this time there
have been no rains, or no dries, or no tornadoes, or one or all
in excess, till at last he comes to the conclusion that the Clerk
of the Weather must have mislaid his ledger. Contrary to the
popular idea, which has descended to us from the classics, the
climate under the Line is not of that torrid heat which a
vertical sun suggests; the burning zone of the Old World begins
in the northern hemisphere, where the regular rains do not
extend, beyond the tenth as far as the twenty-fifth degree.
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