THE TRAIL OF THE STORM 135 



the ordered procession of the thunder-ships as 

 they sweep down from their far-off port of 

 assembly. Like great battle-craft, black be- 

 neath and equipped with dreadful artillery, — 

 their dazzling decks heaped and laden with 

 ocean-gleaned merchandise of crudded white, 

 — they charge menacingly across the illimit- 

 able plains as though to overwhelm the granite 

 ranges. But each stately vessel barely touches 

 some outlying buttress; then the aery hull 

 swerves and changes its course due south, 

 bearing its most precious freight to more for- 

 tunate regions. It is as though some im- 

 mense, invisible fender were being lowered 

 from the sky to guard the range from the 

 shock of impact. 



There came good news from Bushmanland; 

 thunder-storm after thunder-storm had trailed 

 over the plains, each marking its path with 

 verdure and filling every rock-depression with 

 water. The drought had broken, so my long- 

 postponed trip to Pella, that remote outpost 

 of French-Roman Catholicism, could be 

 undertaken. Pella lies where the iron moun- 

 tains, like a leash of black panthers, spring 

 from the northern margin of the plains, — and 

 then sink to their lair in that great gorge 



