A THUXDER-STORIT. 233 



down in earnest. It, however, soon runs off the dry 

 rises, and sinks into the light sandy soil ; and we suftered 

 little or no inconvenience in the forests from the rain, 

 even in the most rainy seasons. 



I only saw three or four regular thunder-storms in this 

 country ; but these tvere storms, and one of them I shall 

 recollect to the day of my death, for I was lost in the 

 forest that night, and the storm raged with unabated 

 violence from ten at night to three in the morning. The 

 night was pitchy dark, except just when a flash of bright 

 lightning lighted up the gloom of the forest, and then for 

 some seconds 1 was fairly blinded. The raiu came down 

 in torrents ; and as the blue lightning hissed through the 

 sky, every flash seemed pointed where I stood, and a 

 large shey-oak was struck, and shivered into a thousand 

 pieces w^ithin a few yards of me. I never expected to 

 leave the forest alive, and I think I never spent so long 

 and dreary a night as this. I have looked death in the 

 face more than once, but it has always been in moments 

 of excitement. In this instance I stood helpless as a 

 child, without any power to avert or even avoid the 

 danger. Never does man feel his own insignificance so 

 much as when the elements are at war around him. 

 There is often a great deal of beautiful sheet lightning 

 at night, especially in the northern sky, with distant 

 rolls of thunder ; but heavy thunder-storms are of very 

 rare occurrence. I once felt a slight shock of an earth- 

 quake here. 



I have perhaps already dwelt too long upon this 



