That evening, as I was already wet, I rode home during the tempest, and never did I see more vivid lightning, hear louder thunder, or feel heavier rain. As we headed the hill, the water rushing down the path appeared almost knee-deep; and to add to the terror of my animal, a white horse, maddened by fear, came rushing down the hill with flowing mane and tail, and swept past us. Seen only during a flash of lightning, it was a most picturesque sight, and I had much difficulty in preventing my frightened horse joining in his wild career. The rainy season varies in different parts of the island, particularly in the north. I am surprised to observe that the priests have found the annual fall of rain to be only 117 inches. I had thought it more. Perhaps, however, that was during an exceptionally dry year. The great plain of Cul-de-Sac is considered healthy, although occasionally intensely warm. It is, however, freely exposed not only to the refreshing sea-breezes, but to the cooling land-winds that come down from the mountains that surround it. There is but little marsh, except near La Rivière Blanche, which runs near the mountains to the north and is lost in the sands. On the sugar-cane plantations, where much irrigation takes place, the negro workmen suffer somewhat from fever and ague, but probably more from the copious libations of new rum, which they assert are rendered necessary by the thirsty nature of the climate. I had often read of a clap of thunder in a clear sky, but never heard anything like the one that shook our house near Port-au-Prince. We were sitting, a large party, in our broad verandah, about eight in the evening, with a beautiful starlight night,--the stars, in fact, shining so brightly that you could almost read by their light,--when a clap of thunder, which appeared to burst just over our roof, took our breath away. It was awful in its suddenness and in its strength. No one spoke for a minute or two, when, by a common impulse, we left the house and looked up into a perfectly clear sky. At a distance, however, on the summits of the mountains, was a gathering of black clouds, which warned my friends to mount their horses, and they could scarcely have reached the town when one of the heaviest storms I have known commenced, with thunder worthy of the clap that had startled us. Though all of us were seasoned to the tropics, we had never been so impressed before. In the wet season the rain, as a rule, comes on at regular hours and lasts a given time, though occasionally it will continue through a night and longer, though rarely does it last above twenty-four hours without a gleam of sunshine intervening. CHAPTER II. HISTORY BEFORE INDEPENDENCE.