386 THE ZAMBEZIAN CLIMATE 



of which it consists are swirling madly round and 

 round, and as the first warm drop of rain falls with a 

 splash on the stone verandah, a heavy, sullen peal 

 of thunder echoes with long, hoarse reverberations, 

 to die away in the distance as the storm bursts. 

 White-robed servants fly about, bringing in chairs 

 and hastily closing windows and doors. A gust of 

 icy-cold wind is followed by another and another, 

 and these fill the atmosphere with clouds of red 

 dust, bending down the coconut palms until they 

 resemble so many distracted, shrieking women 

 tearing their hair in an agony of apprehension. 

 The hurricane, by which these disturbances are 

 very frequently accompanied, is now at its height, 

 and the rain, coming down in blinding sheets, in a 

 few moments transforms the dusty red of the long 

 sun-dried roads into rushing streams of dirty water. 

 Now a close, warm smell of rain-damped earth 

 rises from the grateful soil, whilst to a continuous, 

 deafening cannonade of thunder is added an 

 electric display so gorgeous that words seem 

 powerless to convey an idea of the wonder of it. 

 It is hard to imagine the flashes so vivid that 

 against a background of lurid, continuous flicker- 

 ing, which lights up the whole district, forked 

 lightning is so continuous that, at the height of 

 the storm, you frequently see half a dozen of the 

 brilliant zig-zags simultaneously cleaving the sky 

 as though into a number of pieces. 



Fortunately these storms are short-lived, for the 

 havoc they create is often serious. 



After such a disturbance as the one 1 have just 

 described, rain is fairly continuous for some time, 



