Snow falls occasionally, but it rarely lies on the ground for more than a few days, and is scarcely ever so much as a foot deep.

On the other hand, rain is expected during the winter-time, and the entire line of coast is visited for some months with severe storms and gales, accompanied often by thunder and violent rain,[24] which strew the shore with wrecks and turn even insignificant mountain streams into raging torrents.

The storms come chiefly from the west and north-west, quarters to which the harbours on the coast are unfortunately open.[25] Navigation consequently suffers interruption; but when once the winter is past, a season of tranquillity sets in, and for many months of the year--at any rate from May to October[26]--the barometer scarcely varies, the sky is unclouded, and rain all but unknown.
As the traveller mounts from the coast tract into the more elevated regions, the climate sensibly changes.

An hour's ride from the plains, when they are most sultry, will bring him into a comparatively cool region, where the dashing spray of the glacier streams is borne on the air, and from time to time a breeze that is actually cold comes down from the mountain-tops.[27] Shade is abundant, for the rocks are often perpendicular, and overhand the road in places, while the dense foliage of cedars, or pines, or walnut-trees, forms an equally effectual screen against the sun's noonday rays.

In winter the uplands are, of course, cold.