In the dry season little more than brooks, they become raging torrents in the wet season.
Increased by the perennial waters of these numerous torrents the Senku makes its way S.W.
Below this the watershed of the Apennines is too near to the sea on that side to allow the formation of any large streams. Hence the rivers that flow in the opposite direction into the Adriatic and the Gulf of Taranto have much longer courses, though all partake of the character of mountain torrents, rushing down with great violence in winter and after storms, but dwindling in the summer into scanty streams, which hold a winding and sluggish course through the great plains of Apulia.
All voyagers agree that for varied beauty of form and colour the Society Islands are unsurpassed in the Pacific. Innumerable rills gather in lovely streams, and, after heavy rains, torrents precipitate themselves in grand cascades from the mountain cliffs - a feature so striking as to have attracted the attention of all voyagers, from Wallis downwards.
The latter class is formed by waters that fall on the barren mountain-sides and rush down in torrents, forming in the valleys shallow bodies of water yellow with the mud held in suspension.