82 
PEOPLE KILLED BY LIGHTNING. 
deluge, well described by one of the sailors, who 
remarked, “ every drop was as big as a bucketful.” 
A great deal of mischief was done in the colony. 
The commissariat building was struck and much 
injured at three of the corners, where the solid 
masses of wood, which formed the angular supports, 
were split and shivered for several feet. The point 
of electric attraction was considered to have been the 
iron fastenings of the water-spouts. 
Several persons w^ere killed ; and, in one case, it 
looked like a solemn coincidence with the arrival of an 
expedition, some of whose objects and anticipated 
results were the overthi’ow of superstition, and the 
moral improvement of Afric’s children. Two Aku 
people, a man and woman, were engaged at the door 
of their hut, not far from the barracks, singing, 
beating drums, and offering up their prayers and 
adorations to the forked lightning which illumined 
the dark sky with its fitful glare. A sudden, but 
loud shriek takes the place of the votive song. The 
dwelling has been struck by the destroying fluid they 
were worshipping, and the miserable pair are immolated 
in the ruins. 
Some of the officers went next day to visit the 
place. The objects presented were at once horrible 
and humiliating. The lightning's track was plainly 
discernible across the enclosure which surrounded the 
hut — now almost levelled to the earth. The remains 
of its ill-fated tenants were there in ghastly and 
