All these miseries, however, are not without their remedy; when the sufferings of the natives are at their climax, the mercury will give the sure indication of a coming pampero, as the south-wester is called; on a sudden, a rustling breeze breaks through the stillness of the stagnant atmosphere, and in a few seconds sweeps away the incubus and all else before it; originating in the snows of the Andes, the blast rushes with unbroken violence over the intermediate pampas, and, ere it reaches Buenos Ayres, becomes often a hurricane. A very different state of things then takes place, and, from the suddenness of such changes, the most ludicrous, though often serious, accidents occur, particularly in the river; whither, of an evening especially, a great part of the population will resort to cool themselves during the hot weather. There they may be seen, hundreds and hundreds of men, women, and children, sitting together up to their necks in the water, just like so many frogs in a marsh: if a pampero breaks, as it often does, unexpectedly upon such an assembly, the scramble and confusion which ensues is better imagined than told; fortunate are those who may have taken an attendant to watch their clothes, for otherwise, long ere they can get out of the river, every article of dress is flying before the gale. Not unfrequently the pampero is accompanied by clouds of dust from the parched pampas, so dense as to produce total darkness, in which I have known instances of bathers in the river being drowned ere they could find their way to the shore. I recollect on one of these occasions, a gang of twenty convicts, who were working at the time in irons upon the beach, making their escape in the dark, not one of whom, I believe, was retaken. It is difficult to convey any idea of the strange effects of these dust-storms: day is changed to night, and nothing can exceed the temporary darkness produced by them, which I have known to last for a quarter of an hour in the middle of the day; very frequently they are laid by a heavy fall of rain, which, mingling with the clouds of dust as it pours down, forms literally a shower of mud[17]. The sort of dirty pickle in which people appear after being caught in such a storm is indescribable. Sometimes the consequences are more serious, and the pampero is accompanied by the most terrific thunder and lightning; such, I believe as is to be witnessed in no other part of the world, unless it be the Straits of Sunda. Nothing can be more appalling. In Azara may be read an account of nineteen persons killed by the lightning which fell in the city during one of these storms.