230 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



Great lumps of towering clouds appeared on the horizon, 

 changing to dark gray underneath, with an orange, lurid 

 glare. Mysterious rumblings seemed to pervade the air, 

 or come upwards from the ground. Symptoms of an 

 approaching tornado were unmistakable. The natives 

 hurriedly completed their repast and gathered up all loose 

 articles ; the khalasis tightened the tent-pegs and loosened 

 the guy-ropes sufficiently to prevent the pegs being torn up 

 by the wetted tent, and deeper trenches were dug round 

 the tents. Presently the roar of distant thunder sounded 

 aloft, and came ever louder on the ear. A great wall of 

 inky blackness rose up in the north-west and approached 

 nearer every moment, though still there was not a breath 

 of air stirring among the tree-tops. Onwards and ever 

 closer marched black darkness, threatening to overwhelm 

 whatever came in its course. The roar, as of a fierce 

 battle, getting louder every moment, the animals became 

 terrified and burst their heel-ropes, some flying before 

 the storm, and others cowering in abject fear. And no 

 wonder, for with a hissing sound the wind began to rise, 

 and, with incessant lightning and fearful peals of rattling 

 thunder, the storm burst over our devoted camp. The 

 trees were twisted round, and the branches torn off and 

 sent flying across the plain. The hail came down as big 

 as pigeons' eggs, with a deluge reminding one of Niagara. 

 In two minutes every movable was sent flying into space. 

 The tents withstood the violence of the first gust, but 

 the second levelled them flat. Men struggled with the 

 tent-ropes to retain the flapping canvas from taking its 

 summary departure, and clung frantically to the great 

 buttressed stems of some sturdier mangoes. The dark- 

 ness was complete, but the lightning came through it 

 in blinding flashes, at the rate of forty or fifty per minute, 

 and the roar of the wind and hail and thunder was in- 



