A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES = 267 
a filmy, bodiless thing,—that if it changed 
direction and came toward us we should know 
it but as rain and wind; yet as I watched it, 
the Oriental hymns to the storm-gods seemed 
too little for an invocation of its power, and one 
could fancy a great army of men halting and 
retreating before its awful majesty. “The 
charge of the six hundred!” called one of my 
companions. The clouds went first, the rain 
followed ; we could see it pouring in great 
sheets between us and the side of the ravine, 
and yet we escaped for atime. At last it 
reached us. 
It came with a discharge like that from a 
steam fire-engine, yet we were by this time so 
warm that we welcomed it for our bodies’ sake; 
we were like men working at a great confla- 
gration, who beseech the engines to play on 
them. Yet the instinct of self-protection for 
a moment prevailed; and the dwarf spruce- 
trees under which we could easily shelter our- 
selves made a dry defence. But what was the 
use? Every atom of vegetation must soon be 
saturated, and we were now where we must 
crawl through it, and under it, and over it, to 
reach the top. We were in the region known 
as “scrub,” — above where trees could be trees, 
but where they were condensed into stiff 
bushes, gnarled spikes, holding in every twig the 
