AWFUL TORNADO. 237 



As I was very ill, I kept Sarsfield with me, 

 directing the Kroomen to proceed by land to 

 Yimmahah, and we went on in the canoe. At 

 about eleven o'clock at night, one of the most 

 awful tornadoes that I ever witnessed came on, 

 and continued for four hours. The canoemen 

 directly pulled alongside the bank, and speedily 

 took themselves off into the bush, leaving Sars- 

 field and me to take care of ourselves and the 

 canoe also. Fortunately we had some brandy, 

 which, with a little opium, carried us through 

 the night. Having no covering, excepting our 

 blankets, we literally lay in the water ; and if 

 the canoe had not been aground, she must have 

 sunk from the quantity of rain that poured into 

 her. A number of fowls that we had tied to the 

 thwarts were drowned. 



At daybreak the clouds cleared away : we 

 spread our clothes out to dry in the sun, and, 

 clearing out our canoe as well as we could, pro- 

 ceeded onwards. After a roasting from the sun, 

 as a sort of contrast to the soaking we had ex- 

 perienced, we reached Yimmahah in the even- 

 ing, where I entered my own boat, and enjoyed 

 the hurricane-house in her stern as much as if it 



