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 



