STORMS 385 



though also seeking to assume a wintry aspect, 

 becomes misty and opaque from the smoke of the 

 numerous fires. 



August and September pass, and now the face of 

 the country prepares to cast off its sober, grey, 

 wintry garb, difficult though it may be for dwellers 

 at home to realise that such a term as " wintry " 

 can ever be applicable to the tropical landscapes 

 in which Africa is supposed to be never deficient. 

 With October the heat becomes very great. Vast 

 belts of electrically charged, yellowish cloud, with 

 cumulus, rounded extremities, begin to gather, and 

 at the close of day are seen to be flickering in their 

 murky centres with a menacing tremor of constant 

 lightning. This may go on for a week or more, 

 and then Nature arises like a strong man in his 

 anger, and looses the long pent-up voice of the 

 thunder and the irresistible torrents of the early 

 rains. The first manifestation may come at evening, 

 and is a soul-moving display of natural force. 



The day has probably been hotter than usual, 

 and as night draws near the sUght breeze of 

 afternoon dies away completely. The air is posi- 

 tively sulphurous, and the smell of the soil is as the 

 smell of sun-dried brick. Away to the southward, 

 a lurid, yellowish grey bank of clouds may be seen 

 mounting higher and higher towards the zenith. 

 The higher it mounts, the faster it appears to 

 travel, whUst the lightning, which plays ceaselessly 

 through and through it, can be distinguished on the 

 far horizon darting downwards in rosy, snaky, 

 tremulous forks. Now, as the vast, luminous mass 

 is almost overhead, we see that the vaporous clouds 



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