Tropical Thunder Storms. 
97 
334. The weather now assumed an essentially different character 
and all signs indicated clearly and distinctly the commencement of the 
heavy rainy season. The intensely blinding sheet-lightning, that for 
several nights past had changed the whole vault of Heaven into a fiery 
hemisphere, now gave way to horrible thunderstorms during which huge 
masses of water fell to the accompaniment of the most awful thunder- 
claps that were really enough to upset one’s senses. This terribly grand 
phenomenon repeated itself almost daily; generally in the afternoon 
and night, more rarely in the hours before noon. Its immediate out- 
break on every occasion is preceded by a loud hollow rumbling and rust- 
ling in the upper layers of air through which it seems as if the Wild 
Huntsman were coursing with all his untamed throng let loose: the 
lower layers rest in a peaceful calm, not the tremor of a leaf 
betraying the uproar already burst, that soon will be blustering over 
extensive areas with ungovernable fury. The riot and the revelry' 
gradually drop lower and lower — the upper branches of the huge trees 
are already smiting one another in wild confusion, and their supple tops 
either give way to the impact or else the mighty giants are uprooted, 
and crashing heavily to earth in between their yielding brethren tear 
down all the smaller trees and bushes in their fall. The most terrible 
gale, of which the northerner has no conception, sweeps over the plains, 
mountains, and valleys like a fretting and fuming whirlwind while the 
partial darkness in which Nature becomes enveloped is momentarily 
broken and torn asunder by the quivering fiery lightning. An uproar 
like this often lasts for hours at a time, when the rain that falls gen- 
erally amounts to between two and three inches 
335. Though the weather had become so unsuitable for further ex- 
cursions, T nevertheless made up my mind to take a trip with an Indian 
guide into the interior of the virgin forest, an intention that would have 
been carried out already had not my brother’s absence restrained me: 
his arrival had to be awaited, as, owing to the number of Indian strangers, 
I did not consider it safe to leave the camp at any time for long. 
336. Supplied with a gun, plenty of ammunition, the provisions most 
necessary, and accompanied by an Indian, I set out on my trip. The 
heavy rains had stamped a new and livelier character on the whole of 
Nature and promoted the development of myriads of insects. The 
bush and undergrowth were in some places so completely covered with 
glistening beetles (Buprcstis) , Cnssidea, Curculio and different 
species of Hemiptera, that one could hardly see the greenery of the 
leaves. Where they had left a bush or a plant free it was taken pos- 
session of by innumerable Cicndae of the most strange and peculiar 
shapes but which took to flight at a bound immediately any of us came 
near. 
337. The richer the representation of lower forms of animal life the 
more impoverished became my herbarium because our surroundings 
soon consisted of nothing but dense virgin forest, out of which the un- 
dergrowth had been completely crowded, and where besides only a few 
of the giant forest trees happened to be in blossom. What the vege- 
tation denied, the insects and feathered residents supplied to the full, 
particularly the JTerodii and Rhampliastidae (herons and bigbills). 
