TCD MS 10515 folio 129 recto
We eagerly scan the sky for any sign of a change. Even the faintest film of a cloud, the dim shade of a man’s hand, is a sight that grasps the attention in these cloudless heavens. On the early morning of the 29th June, I thought that the Shimal had at last arrived as I woke to see the sky covered in long ranks of fleecy cumuli. No great change, however, followed. The clouds rapidly dissipated and the day grew as hot, if not hotter, than ever. But some disturbance was at hand; on the first of July a dry northerly breeze came streaming over our camp affording appreciable relief; but on the 3rd it died away to be replaced by a hot South Easterly wind that burnt us with its blast and blinded us with its whirling dust. These changing currents of the atmosphere in