t
although Arthur and myself were at the time scarcely two hundred yards
from the house, we were thoroughly drenched before we could reach it.
And this proved to be no mere thunder shower, such as we had already
been two or three times surprised by. Scarcely had we got under
shelter, when the air grew so dark that it would really have been
difficult to see one's way through the grove. I had never before
witnessed any thing like this, and I began to fear that we were going to
be visited by one of those terrible hurricanes which sometimes devastate
tropical countries. The wind soon commenced blowing with such violence,
that the largest and sturdiest of the old trees that surrounded our
house, bent and swayed before its fury. Their tops lashed each other
overhead, and filled the air with clouds of leaves, whirled away upon
the tempest. Large boughs were twisted off like twigs, and strewed the
ground in every direction. The creaking and groaning of the trees; the
loud flapping of the palm-leaves, like that of a sail loose in the wind;
the howling and shrieking of the gale, as it burst in quick, fierce
gusts through the forest; with the almost total darkness that enveloped
us, were truly appalling.

The strength of our dwelling was now put to a severer test than its
builders had ever anticipated, and it yielded to the force of the wind,
so that at times the side-posts stood at an angle of forty-five degrees
with the floor; had they been of any material less tough and pliant than
the hibiscus, they must have snapped off in an instant. It was well,
too, that they had been deeply and firmly planted in the ground, or the
whole fabric would have been lifted bodily into the air, and swept away
like a withered leaf. As it was, though wrenched and twisted woefully,
it stood firm. The thatch, of which Arthur was so proud, and which had
hitherto been storm-proof, now opened in many places, and a dozen little
streams began to pour in upon us.

Before night, the sound of running waters without was like that of a
great spring freshet. Cataracts were leaping on every side from the
edges of the height, and a raging and turbid torrent filled the gully
that separated the forest from Castle-hill.

The tempest continued for nearly forty-eight hours. By the time it was
over, we had quite come to the conclusion, that if this was to be
regarded as a foretaste and specimen, of what we had to expect during
the rainy season, it would n