STORM SCENE ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 131 



" I tell you what, stranger, a storm on that ar Mis- 

 sissipp ain't to be sneezed at." 



The wood-chopper's story, when concluded, would 

 have occasioned a general laugh, had there not been 

 outside our cabin at this moment a portentous silence, 

 which alarmed us all. 



The storm we thought had been upon us in all its 

 fury, but we now felt that more was to come; in the 

 midst of this expectation a stream of fire rushed from 

 the horizon upwards ; where high over head could be 

 seen its zigzag course, then rushed downwards, appa- 

 rently almost at our very feet, — a few hundred yards from 

 us a tall oak dropped some of its gigantic limbs, and flash- 

 ed into a light blaze. The rain, however powerful pre- 

 viously, now descended in one continued sheet. The 

 roof of our shelter seemed to gather water rather than 

 to protect us from it ; little rivulets dashed across the 

 floor, and then widening into streams, we were soon lite- 

 rally afloat. The descending floods sounded about us 

 like the roll-call of a muffled drum, the noise almost 

 deafening us, then dying off in the distance, as the 

 sweeping gusts of wind drove the clouds before them. 

 The burning forest meanwhile hissed and cracked, and 

 rolled up great columns of steam. 



The turbid water of the Mississippi in all this war 

 of the elements, rushed on, save where it touched its 

 banks, with a smooth but mysterious looking surface 

 that resembled in the glare of the lightning, a mirror of 



