542 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
in an elevated and sheltered position, under the lee of a high 
stone enclosure, which only required the entrance to be closed 
with bushes to make a secure pound for the cattle. Scarcely 
were these arrangements completed, when a stream of liquid 
fire ran along the ground, and a deafening thunder-clap 
exploding close above us, was “instantly followed by a torrent 
of rain which “came dancing down to the earth,” not in 
drops, but in continuous streams, and with indescribable 
violence, during the greater part of the night; the thunder 
now receding and rumbling less and less distinctly, but more 
incessantly, among the distant mountains—now pealing in 
echoes over the distant hills, and now returning to burst with 
redoubled violence over our heads. 
“Far along, 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
Leapt the wild thunder, not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain soon had found a tongue.” 
The horses and oxen were presently standing knee-deep 
in water; our followers remained sitting all night in the 
baggage wagon, which, being better covered, fortunately 
resisted the pitiless storm. Sleep, however, was out of the 
question, the earth actually threatening to give way under 
us, the lightning being so painfully vivid that we were glad 
to hide our heads under the pillow. 
Those only who have witnessed the setting in of the south- 
west monsoon in India, are capable of understanding the 
awful tempest I have attempted to describe. About an hour 
before dawn its fury began to abate, and at sunrise it was 
perfectly fine, but the rivers were quité impassable. I pro- 
ceeded with some of the Hottentots to reconnoitre the pass, 
but found that it was impassable for wagons, being nothing 
more than a narrow channel flanked by perpendicular erags, 
between which the Saut river rushes on its way to join the 
Singkling, making a number of abrupt windings through a 
