1 23 Climatic Change An Interdisciplinary, International Journal Devoted to the Description, Causes and Implications of Climatic Change ISSN 0165-0009 Climatic Change DOI 10.1007/s10584-015-1550-8 Seasonal rainfall variability in southeast Africa during the nineteenth century reconstructed from documentary sources David J. Nash, Kathleen Pribyl, Jørgen Klein, Raphael Neukom, Georgina H. Endfield, George C. D. Adamson & Dominic R. Kniveton