Читать книгу The People of Palestine. An enlarged edition of "The Peasantry of Palestine, Life, Manners and Customs of the Village" онлайн

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Sometimes, in speaking of the seasons in Palestine, we say summer and winter,^[14] and sometimes we mention the four seasons. Perhaps if we should say wet season and dry season it would be less misleading, but even then one would have to bear in mind that the wet season is not a time of general downpour but simply the season in which the rains of the year come.

The wet season, or winter,^[15] as it is more generally called, ought to provide, for the welfare of the country, from twenty-five to thirty inches of rainfall in the highlands. Sometimes it is as low as sixteen inches, and it occasionally exceeds thirty-five or even forty inches. Roughly speaking, the wet season claims the five months, November to March. In a very wet winter, perhaps, the rains will reach over a period of nearly six months, but, on the other hand, the rainy period may shrink to four. The most frequent and heavy falls of rain in an ordinary season are looked for near the beginning and at the close of the wet season. Many pleasant days,^[16] and even some entire weeks of rainless weather, may be expected during this wet season. Now and then there may be a winter during which the water will be glazed over in the puddles a few times, or there may be several falls of snow.^[17] Driving, raw, chilling rains and winds may prevail for a week at a time, or longer, and be less easy to bear than the stronger cold of a more northerly climate.^[18]