CHAPTER VIII 



THE SUMMER CLOUDS — NEWS OF RAIN — START FOR PELLA 

 THE VEDIC HYMNS — DIGGING FOR WATER — ARRIVAL 

 AT PELLA — TERRIBLE HEAT — THE TRIBE — AQUINAS 

 IN THE WILDERNESS — THE MISSION — THE RIVER 

 GORGE — THE TARANTULA INVASION. 



THAT mountain tract stretching like a 

 back - bone through Namaqualand, 

 parallel with the coast upon which 

 the Atlantic ceaselessly thunders, is the region 

 which catches the sparse, south-western winter 

 rains, — but which in summer is the abode of 

 drought. On the in-lying Bushmanland plains 

 the winters are quite arid ; it is only in summer, 

 when occasional thunder-storms stray down 

 from the north-east, that the level desert gets 

 rain. 



In a season when the Storm Gods go forth 

 mightily to war on the aether seas, and the 

 capricious heavens are bountiful, it is a strik- 

 ing experience to climb, on a torrid afternoon, 

 some peak jutting from the eastern margin of 

 the mountain tract, and from there to watch 



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