Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/65

creasing at least four times a-week to a severe storm, which blew the blinding dust into our eyes, and interfered seriously with the excavations. Only a few of my labourers had dust-spectacles; those who had none were obliged to cover up their faces with shawls, and thus the host of my veiled workmen looked very like the muffled attendants at Italian funerals. At the same time the weather was very cold, the thermometer often falling at night below freezing-point (0° Celsius = 32° F.),^[1] and sometimes, even in April, the water froze to solid ice in our barracks; nay, the thermometer often did not mark above 3° C. = 37° 4 F. at noon. Mount Saoce, on Samothrace, remained covered with snow till about the end of March. The chain of Ida was entirely covered with snow till about the 20th of March. Afterwards only the higher peaks remained snow-clad; but the snow gradually diminished, and by the end of May snow could only be seen on and near their summits. For particulars regarding the weather from the 22nd of April to the 21st of July, I refer the reader to the meteorological tables at the end of the volume. Unfortunately these observations were not made for the first fifty-three days; and I was prevented by my malaria-fever from continuing to write them up after the 21st of July.

The winter of 1881–1882 had been extraordinarily dry, and later on rain was still extremely rare. We had in all March and April only five or six very slight showers of rain, and all the time, up to the end of July, there was no rain except during two thunderstorms. From this cause, the