It was a Sunday evening and the sun set with a radiance which covered the whole sky with a crimson glow, in a very remarkable manner. We settled down after our evening meal for a little reading aloud, but the wind rose rapidly, and after a time the roar was so great that we could not go on. We found that its violence increased, and at length we perceived that it was slowly changing in its direction. We went to bed, but not to sleep, for the rain poured in from the roof, and the howl of the wind made sleep impossible. We lay trembling on our beds, fearing every now and then, as a more violent burst shook the house, that it would be blown down over us, and we buried in its ruins. Such would have been the case, I believe, had not the gables been built of burnt brick and strengthened by the chimney-stacks. During the night the metal roofing of the verandah was torn off with a fearful clatter, and soon after dawn—and how long that dawn seemed in coming!—the outer roof of the house, which was of grass, fixed over the tiled roof, was bodily seized by the wind and carried off altogether with its timbers, with a great crash, and then we thought the house itself was all going. But towards nine A.M. the wind gradually subsided, after having blown from about three-quarters of the circle of the compass. Scores of country chapels as well as houses were unroofed and greatly damaged by this storm. A day or two after it we tried to take one of our usual walks through the woods, but the paths were almost obliterated by fallen trees and branches. In the valleys scores of great trees had been torn up by the roots, with masses of soil clinging to them; in other places they had been broken off short, snapped as if they had been mere twigs; and in the prostrate branches were numbers of arboreal creatures—chameleons, lizards, serpents and tree-frogs—dashed down from their homes. It was all striking evidence of the force with which the fierce wind had roared, especially up the valleys, and had laid low everything in its path. [13] For most of the information here given about the Madagascar bee, I am again indebted to the Rev. C. P. Cory, formerly of the Anglican Mission in Madagascar. CHAPTER XII RAMBLES IN THE UPPER FOREST