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Updated: June 26, 2025
The harmattan generally produces a very strong westerly current in direct opposition to this, and the want of knowing it, has frequently proved fatal to vessels; the masters of which, imagining that they were under the influence of an easterly current, have been actually drifted many miles to the westward in the course of a single night, and have found themselves on shore the next morning; the violence of the current from the westward when the sea breezes are strong, is so great, that it is scarcely possible to believe, that a day or two of the harmattan would overcome it, but the effect of this is so powerful, that it is well known, to those, who have frequented the gulf, that the current produced by the harmattan, will even continue against the westerly winds, after they may have again set in.
September 1, in the early morning, land-clouds rising ahead told of the Canary Islands not far away. A change in the weather came next day: storm-clouds stretched their arms across the sky; from the east, to all appearances, might come a fierce harmattan, or from the south might come the fierce hurricane. Every point of the compass threatened a wild storm.
The Landers had the good fortune to arrive at the island during the season of fine weather, but they had not enjoyed much of the sea breeze, which about noon, sometimes set in from the north west quarter, The harmattan is said to be experienced here, although it extends not to the other islands of the gulf.
From these causes, and the more powerful effect of the sun's rays in one place than in another, hurricanes and typhoons occur, and the monsoons are made to blow the harmattan on the west coast of Africa; the simoon, with its deadly breath, in Arabia; the oppressive sirocco in the Mediterranean.
Considerable areas on the Gold Coast, even though the soil is good, are now useless for cultivation, on account of their having been deforested by the natives' wasteful way of making their farms, coupled with the harmattan and the long dry season.
From the subsidence of a white powder, it seems probable that the Harmattan has a similar origin, from the unexplored mountains of Africa. Mr.
The harmattan is said not to extend to the southward of Fernando Po, but this has not yet been fully ascertained. The passage through the gulf from Fernando Po to Sierra Leone, is generally extremely long and tedious, owing to the prevalence of calms and the different currents.
It howled dismally while it lasted, and though it was not the season of the harmattan, the sea in the course of an hour was discolored with a reddish-brown dust. The air remained thick with flying dust all the afternoon, but the wind, veering northwest at night, swept it back to land, and afforded the Spray once more a clear sky.
Leaving Liberia, we slipped away down the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast, driven gently along by a scorching wind called the Harmattan. Our charts were primitive and incomplete, the information they gave quite inadequate. We had to steer by soundings, very cautiously. The coast was uniformly low and green, with no distinctive signs upon it.
The harmattan was like an Edinburgh "haar," though it was not cold except between midnight and daybreak; the air was thick with fine sand dust, and often she could not see three yards away. She longed for a "wee blink of home," and a home Sabbath. "But though the tears are coming at the thought, you are not to think for one moment that I would take the offer if it were given me!
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