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The sun was shining, but a keen north wind was blowing and the thermometer stood at -4° F. We were rather a sorry company. Karstens still had internal pains; Tatum and I had severe headaches. Walter was the only one feeling entirely himself, so Walter was put in the lead and in the lead he remained all day.
During the whole of this month, the weather was cloudy and hazy, with light showers of rain, and sometimes distant thunder; the wind chiefly, though from the north-east and south-east, and during the night, westerly, or land winds. The thermometer from 63° to 112°. The thermometer, as marked for these last four months, was in the open air occasionally exposed to the sun and wind.
In the 7th of July, while he was writing in his piazza, which was open at each end, he says the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer stood at 102 in the shade. Twice had it risen to that height during the summer, several times to 100, and for many days together to 98; and in the night did not sink below 89.
I solemnly made one and then the other smoke the thermometer, allowed an expression of satisfaction to irradiate my countenance, and joyfully told them that their temperature was 94 degrees. Then I slammed more quinine down their throats, told them that any sickness or weakness they might experience would be due to the quinine, and left them to get well.
Once or twice she thought passionately of Minta Hurd, washing and mending all day, in her damp cottage; or of the Pattons in "the parish house," thankful after sixty years of toil for a hovel where the rain came through the thatch, and where the smoke choked you, unless, with the thermometer below freezing-point, you opened the door to the blast.
Much of our home life followed; no family can be expected to gather in cheerful converse around a “radiator.” How can this horror of fresh air among us be explained? If people really enjoy living in overheated rooms with little or no ventilation, why is it that we hear so much complaining, when during the summer months the thermometer runs up into the familiar nineties?
They said they did not themselves expect any danger. Had they done so they would never have let our camp extend over so much ground, with no concealment as regarded fires and shouting, nor would they have let their camels wander so far afield. The first place after Wadi Gabeit that we camped at was Hambulli, four hours distant. The thermometer was down to 50° in the night.
Wednesday, the 15th, was a really tropic day; blazing heat in the forenoon, with the thermometer at 82 degrees in the shade, and in the afternoon stifling clouds from the south-west, where a dark band of rain showed, according to the planters' dictum, showers over the islands, which we were nearing fast.
"All right, Miss Lucy, only I do hope you won't have to foot it back in this heat." "I shan't mind." "It's going to be a terrible day," insisted the lad. "Them buzzin' locusts is enough to prove that. They're good as a thermometer." Lucy laughed. "Don't worry about me," she remarked kindly. "Just as soon as I finish my errands I shall start home." "You'd be wise to."
Passing through another scrub of Acacia pendula we reached a still more extensive plain, and while we were crossing it I was informed, by the carpenter, that the wheels of one of the carts were falling to pieces and required immediate repair. We accordingly halted, and some wedges were driven into them. The thermometer here stood at 97 degrees.
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