8 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
tufted heads of the tall, slim cocoa-nut trees almost 
to the earth, flinging the light sand into the air in 
eddying vortices, until the rain had either so increased 
its gravity, or beaten it into a mass, as to prevent the 
wind from raising it. The pale lightning stream- 
ed from the clouds in broad sheets of flame, which 
appeared to encircle the heavens as if every element 
had been converted into fire, and the world was on 
the eve of a general conflagration, whilst the peal, 
which instantly followed, was like the explosion of a 
gunpowder-magazine, or the discharge of artillery in 
the gorge of a mountain, where the repercussion of 
surrounding hills multiplies with terrific energy its deep 
and astounding echoes. The heavens seemed to be 
one vast reservoir of flame, which was propelled from 
its voluminous bed by some invisible but omnipotent 
agency, and threatened to fling its fiery ruin upon 
every thing around. In some parts, however, of the 
pitchy vapour by which the skies were by this time 
completely overspread, the lightning was seen only 
occasionally to glimmer in faint streaks of light, as 
if struggling, but unable, to escape from its prison, 
igniting, but too weak to burst, the impervious bosoms 
of those capacious magazines in which it was at 
once engendered and pent up. So heavy and con- 
tinuous was the rain, that scarcely any thing, save 
those vivid bursts of light which nothing could arrest 
or resist, was perceptible through it. The thunder 
was so painfully loud, that it frequently caused the 
ear to throb ; it seemed as if mines were momentarily 
springing in the heavens, and I could almost fancy 
that one of the sublimest fictions of heathen fable was 
