rowl of
thunder burst overhead and heavy drops of rain began to fall.

Those who have not witnessed gales and storms in tropical regions can
form but a faint conception of the fearful hurricane that burst upon the
island of Mango at this time. Before we reached the temple, the storm
burst upon us with a deafening roar, and the natives, who knew too well
the devastation that was to follow, fled right and left through the woods
in order to save their property, leaving us alone in the midst of the
howling storm. The trees around us bent before the blast like willows,
and we were about to flee in order to seek shelter, when the teacher ran
toward us with a knife in his hand.

"Thank the Lord," he said, cutting our bonds, "I am in time! Now, seek
the shelter of the nearest rock."

This we did without a moment's hesitation, for the whistling wind burst,
ever and anon, like thunder-claps among the trees, and, tearing them from
their roots, hurled them with violence to the ground. Rain cut across
the land in sheets, and lightning played like forked serpents in the air;
while, high above the roar of the hissing tempest, the thunder crashed,
and burst, and rolled in awful majesty.

In the village the scene was absolutely appalling. Roofs were blown
completely off the houses in many cases; and in others, the houses
themselves were levelled with the ground. In the midst of this, the
natives were darting to and fro, in some instances saving their goods,
but in many others seeking to save themselves from the storm of
destruction that whirled around them. But, terrific although the tempest
was on land, it was still more tremendous on the mighty ocean. Billows
sprang, as it were, from the great deep, and while their crests were
absolutely scattered into white mist, they fell upon the beach with a
crash that seemed to shake the solid land. But they did not end there.
Each successive wave swept higher and higher on the beach, until the
ocean lashed its angry waters among the trees and bushes, and at length,
in a sheet of white curdled foam, swept into the village and upset and
carried off, or dashed into wreck, whole rows of the native dwellings! It
was a sublime, an awful scene, calculated, in some degree at least, to
impress the mind of beholders with the might and the majesty of God.

We found shelter in a cave that night and all the next day, during which
time the storm raged in fury; but on the night following it abate