CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 85 



Again and again you are deluded into believing the 

 long, weary drought is indeed nearing its end ; you feel 

 so sure there is a tremendous rain just at hand, that 

 you prepare for action, and, doubting the trust- 

 ^vorthiness of those portions of the roof covered with 

 brack, are careful to remove from beneath them every- 

 thing liable to be spoilt by wet then, having set your 

 house in order, you wait eagerly to hear the first 

 pattering of the longed-for drops. They do not come, 

 however ; it all ends in nothing, and soon every cloud 

 is gone, and the sun blazes out once more in pitiless 

 splendour. 



Then at last, after " Wolf ! " has been cried so often 

 that you are off your guard, and — obstinately refusing 

 to be taken in by the promising bank of clouds you 

 noticed in the evening — have gone off to bed, expecting 

 your waking eyes to rest only on the usual hard, hot, 

 grey-blue sky — suddenly, in the middle of the night, 

 you are aroused by a deafening noise, and your first 

 confused, half-dreaming thought is that somehow or 

 other you have got underneath the Falls of Niagara — 

 house and all. Then a blue flash wakes you quite up, 

 a terrific roar of thunder shakes the house, and you 

 realize that what for months you have been so longing 

 for has come at last ! But there are penalties to be paid 

 for it ; and an ominous sound of trickling strikes your 

 ear. Your bedroom unfortunately has a brack roof ; 

 and through the defective places in the latter, which 

 every moment become larger and more numerous, 

 streams of water are pouring in, till at last the room 



