The pluviometer was inside the box, and therefore it would have
been difficult to convince scientists that the clouds had not entirely
skipped Remate de Males during the rainy season, unless the postmaster
were to put the whole observatory under water by main force. He also
had a chart showing the distribution of clouds on each day of the
year. I noticed that the letter "N" occupied a suspiciously large
percentage of the space on the chart, and when I asked him for the
meaning of this he said that "N"--which in meteorological abbreviation
means Nimbus--stood for "_None_" (in Portuguese _Nao_). And he thought
that he must be right because it was the rainy season.
The hotel, in which I passed several months as a guest, until
I finally decided to rent a hut for myself, had points about it
which outdid anything that I have ever seen or heard of in comic
papers about "summer boarding." The most noticeable feature was the
quarter-of-a-story higher than any other house in the village. While
this meant a lead as to quantity I could never see that it represented
anything in actual quality. I would not have ventured up the ladder
which gave access to the extra story without my Winchester in hand,
and during the time I was there I never saw anyone else do so.
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