the tarpaulin covering all, and I slipped out again 

 back to my place under the waggon to watch the 

 storm. 



We were on high ground which fell gently away on 

 three sides a long spur running down to the river 

 between two of the numberless small watercourses 

 scoring the flanks of the hills. Mere gutters they were, 

 easy corrugations in the slope from the range to the 

 river, insignificant drains in which no water ever ran 

 except during the heavy rains. One would walk 

 through scores of them with easy swinging stride and 

 never notice their existence. Yet, when the half- 

 hour's storm was over and it was possible to get out and 

 look round, they were rushing boiling torrents, twenty 

 to thirty feet across and six to ten feet deep, foaming 

 and plunging towards the river, red with the soil of the 

 stripped earth, and laden with leaves, grass, sticks, and 

 branches water-furies, wild and ungovernable, against 

 which neither man nor beast could stand for a moment. 



When the rain ceased the air was full of the roar 

 of waters, growing louder and nearer all the time. 

 I walked down the long low spur to look at the river, 

 expecting much, and was grievously disappointed. 

 It was no fuller and not much changed. On either 

 side of me the once dry dongas emptied their soil- 

 stained and debris-laden contents in foaming cataracts, 

 each deepening the yellowy red of the river at its 

 banks ; but out in mid-stream the river was un- 

 disturbed, and its normal colour the clear yellow 

 of some ambers was unchanged. How small the 

 great storm seemed then ! How puny the flooded 



426 



