196 LIGHTNING CONDUCTORS. 



and then such a storm of thunder, lightning-, wind, rain, 

 and hail broke upon my camp, that, but for the low and 

 wooded situation on which we were located, I should have 

 expected my horses and mules, as sometimes happens, to 

 have been driven from their pickets and forced to have 

 flown before it. It lasted the greater part of the night, 

 and such continuous, close, and dangerous lightning I had 

 never seen ; and then it was that I thoroughly understood 

 the necessity of conductors for the electric fluid which 

 were usually attached to cabins on the plains, that, but for 

 the life they contain, seemed scarcely worthy of such care. 



As the storm passed over us the temperature of the air 

 changed, and became so cold that I was glad to pull on 

 extra blankets and a buffalo robe to keep me warm, and 

 on looking from my waggon at break of day I saw that 

 on the tin of water near my dogs there was ice of the 

 thickness of a shilling, and that the long grass was silvered 

 by the hoar of a white frost. It is these atmospheric 

 changes in temperature, as well as decayed vegetation, 

 which make the plains so trying to the constitution of men 

 men even born on or in the vicinity of the plains ; and 

 if, when thus acclimatised, they suffer, why, no wonder 

 that an Englishman like myself felt that he must take 

 pains to keep in health sufficient to enjoy the sport for 

 which he had left his own home. 



That I resisted and escaped ague, and suffered, in com 

 parison with my men and the frontier settlers whom I met 

 in my travels, so slightly from the pervading fever, I at 

 tribute, not only to a naturally good constitution, but to 

 the constant use of a cold bath and entire abstinence from 

 tobacco. My Boh-hoys informed me that their tent was 

 flooded in the night, and George in his dog-waggon also 

 got thoroughly wet through. 



