FLOODED WATERCOURSE 129 
away, that no effort had been made to improve the road 
here. 
Probably, if a little labour was expended, the solid 
rock would be reached, and a fairly good and perma- 
nent road could then be easily made. We got to Cha- 
pa at 4 p.M., and found the missionaries, who gave us a 
hearty welcome, and were astonished at seeing us. 
Heavy rain fell just as we arrived, and some time after- 
wards, as we were sitting in the verandah, talking and 
smoking, a noise resembling rapidly approaching 
thunder was heard. On going to the back of the 
mission-house, where there was a garden, at the end of 
which was a dry watercourse, we were just in time to 
see a mass of turbid water, bearing along huge blocks 
of granite weighing many tons each, break over a 
precipice, nearly two hundred feet high, with a deafen- 
ing roar, and plunge into the watercourse beneath. In 
a moment the flood was passing the bottom of the 
garden, but the scene of the wildly rushing water is 
more than my pen is able to describe. A brown- 
coloured flood dashed furiously along, bearing with it 
large masses of granite, and tossing them about as if 
they were mere chips. These were violently thrown 
against each other and against the bed of the course, 
with such force as to make the ground tremble beneath 
our feet. 
