228 A LAND STORM IN THE TROPICS. 



vanished by this time under the thickest trees, and into the deepest 

 coverts, and the wild ducks were shooting past in long lines, piercing 

 the thick air with outstretched neck and clanging wing. 



Suddenly the wind fell, and the sound of the waterfall increased, 

 and grew rough and loud, and the undefinable rushing noise that pre- 

 cedes a heavy fall of rain in the tropics, the voice of the wilderness, 

 moaned through the high woods, until at length the clouds sank upon 

 the valley in boiling mists, rolling half way down the surrounding 

 hills; and the water of the stream, whose scanty rill but an instant 

 before hissed over the precipice in a small, transparent ribbon of clear 

 grass-green, sprinkled with white foam, and then threaded its way 

 round the large rocks in its capacious channel, like a silver eel twist- 

 ing through a desert, now changed in a moment to a dark turgid 

 chocolate colour; and even as we stood and looked, lo! a column 

 of water from the mountains, pitched in thunder over the face of the 

 precipice, making the earth tremble, and driving up from the rugged 

 face of the everlasting rocks in smoke, and forcing the air into eddies 

 and sudden blasts which tossed the branches of the trees that over- 

 hung it, as they were dimly seen through clouds of drizzle, as if they 

 had been shaken by a tempest, although there was not a breath stir- 

 ring elsewhere out of heaven; while little, wavering, spiral wreaths 

 of mist rose up thick from the surface of the boiling pool at the 

 bottom of the cataract, like miniature water-spouts, until they were 

 dispersed by the agitation of the air above. 



At length the swollen torrent rolled roaring down the narrow 

 valley, filling the whole water-course, about fifty yards wide, and 

 advancing with a solid front a fathom high a fathom deep does not 

 convey the idea like a stream of lava, or as one may conceive of 

 the Red Sea, when, at the stretching forth of the hand of the prophet 

 of the Lord, its mighty waters rolled back and stood up as a wall 

 to the host of Israel. 



The channel of the stream, which but a minute before I could 

 have leaped across, was the next instant filled and utterly impassable. 



And the rain now began pattering in large drops, like scattering 

 shots, preceding an engagement, on the wooden shingles with which 

 the house was roofed, gradually increasing to a loud rushing noise, 

 which as the rooms were not ceiled, prevented a word being heard. 



At length the weather cleared, and with a suddenness which no one 

 can comprehend who has not lived in these climates, the sun shone 

 brightly on the flowers and garden plants which grew in a range of 

 pots on the balcony. 



PIIOIF.SSOR WILSON. 



