TigeivShooting 269 



were by the river indeed, I cannot remember anything 

 approaching them. 



We were trying to shoot "muggers" (crocodiles) 

 one evening. The beasts were too wily, and directly 

 we got anywhere within shot, slid off the hot rocks, 

 where they lay sunning themselves, and disappeared 

 in deep water. So we sat down by the edge of the 

 river, waiting in case one might show himself again. 



After a time one of us noticed, far away down 

 the valley, an .enormous cloud of yellow dust, nothing 

 more than the sand in the river-bed driven along in 

 front of an awful squall of wind right up the river. 

 On it came a thousand miles an hour ! We watched 

 the water in the distance, lying smiling, calm, blue, in 

 the sun, suddenly turn a sort of black-green before it, 

 and then, in an instant, the storm burst upon us. 

 The river was turned into a leaping, boiling mass ; 

 we were right in the tempest. Fortunately, our camp 

 was only a hundred yards away, for the wind was 

 awful to struggle against, and the dust and sand were 

 almost blinding. We were hurled this way and that. 



The servants had seen it coming and had secured 

 our tents, but both the poles of mine went smash, 

 broke short off under the strain. Struggling out of 

 the debris, I rushed into J.'s tent ; my own things 

 did not get very wet, as the tent, of course, lay over 

 them, and was fairly waterproof. 



A terrific thunderstorm was meanwhile going on 

 over Bustar. It was a wonderful sight to watch, as 

 it crept over the sky nearer and nearer to us. The 



