defiles of mountains on the approach to the Plan de Barrancas. The sky
became overcast--thunder was growling angrily in the distance, when we
overtook a drove of mules, the arrieros urging them at speed down a
valley to escape the fury of the impending storm. Descending to the base
of a gorge, we crossed the rocky bed of a rippling brook, and removing
the saddles from our horses, led them above, and secured them to a tree,
whilst we ascended still higher, and sought refuge under the lee of a
great shelving crag that had once formed part of the stupendous wall,
five thousand feet above us. Rain began to fall in large heavy drops,
lightning to glare, and thunder came nearer. The air was perfectly
still; and the sharp whistles and cries of the drivers echoed and
re-echoed from side to side of the chasm, as they hurried their beasts
across the stream. By-and-by a strong gust of wind went rushing
overhead, the thunder came crashing yet closer, the dark slate-colored
clouds poured down in torrents, and lightning forked, flashing and
vivid, made the narrow valley tremulous with noise and fire. The rain
descended in unbroken sheets, and in an inconceivably short space of
time, the bubbling brook had become a boiling torrent, swelling and
leaping from rock to rock, until, at last, joining in the uproar of
rain, wind, flame and thunder, the rocks themselves were loosened, and
came rumbling and crashing down the steep gorges, and were swept away in
the whirlpool of foaming waters. He who has never beheld a
quickly-raised storm amid wild mountain passes, and the amazing power
of the elements, can have but a vague idea of Nature when clothed in
all her angry grandeur and sublimity.

The _nubarrada_ was soon over, but the whole face of the valley was
changed: trees and undergrowth had been torn up by the roots or washed
down--deep fissures had been cut wherever the red clayey soil gave play
to the impetuous currents--masses of basaltic granite had been
dislodged, thrown from their foundations, hurled some distance below,
and either served to block up some open channel, or enlarge others; and
the point where the path crossed the stream had been burrowed out into a
deep, raging pool, which would in future be impassible.

One of the poor mules belonging to the drove, with his cargo of sugar,
had been caught and carried away in the contending water; the arrieros
cursed like infidels, and wickedly declared they had long before wished
a l