542 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



in an elevated and sheltered position, under the lee of a high 

 stone enclosure, which only required the entrance to be closed 

 with bushes to make a secure pound for the cattle. Scarcely 

 were these arrangements completed, when a stream of liquid 

 fire ran along the ground, and a deafening thunder-clap 

 exploding close above us, was instantly followed by a torrent 

 of rain which " came dancing down to the earth," not in 

 drops, but in continuous streams, and with indescribable 

 violence, during the greater part of the night ; the thunder 

 now receding and rumbling less and less distinctly, but more 

 incessantly, among the distant mountains now pealing in 

 echoes over the distant hills, and now returning to burst with 

 redoubled violence over our heads. 



" Far along, 



From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 

 Leapt the wild thunder, not from one lone cloud, 

 But every mountain soon had found a tongue." 



The horses and oxen were presently standing knee-deep 

 in water; our followers remained sitting all night in the 

 baggage wagon, which, being better covered, fortunately 

 resisted the pitiless storm. Sleep, however, was out of the 

 question, the earth actually threatening to give way under 

 us, the lightning being so painfully vivid that we were glad 

 to hide our heads under the pillow. 



Those only who have witnessed the setting in of the south- 

 west monsoon in India, are capable of understanding the 

 awful tempest I have attempted to describe. About an hour 

 before dawn its fury began to abate, and at sunrise it was 

 perfectly fine, but the rivers were quite impassable. I pro- 

 ceeded with some of the Hottentots to reconnoitre the pass, 

 but found that it was impassable for wagons, being nothing 

 more than a narrow channel flanked by perpendicular crags, 

 between which the Saut river rushes on its way to join the 

 Singkling, making a number of abrupt windings through a 



