“All the week heavy showers had been falling, off and on, yet there was nothing to indicate alarm to an uninitiated eye. But after dinner, while we were sitting in the verandah enjoying our pipes and watching the clouds as they swept past, my host suddenly exclaimed: ‘If this east wind lasts through the night, we shall have a flood before three days are over, if not sooner. It was just such a night as this ten years ago, and very much the same time of year (about the middle of August), when we had one of the worst floods that have occurred in the colony. That stream which you crossed to-day, near our mill, rose a good thirty or forty feet, and you will notice to-morrow that we have made that allowance in choosing a site for our buildings. I don’t believe it ever has risen more than this; but if it ever should, it will carry everything before it.’ “Next morning, Melville, my host, was up before me, pacing the verandah, and grumbling to himself. On my asking ‘What’s the matter?’ he came out with ‘Don’t you see, or didn’t you hear, that, just after we turned in last night, one of the most tremendous storms we have had for years came on? It’s been raining bucketfuls all night! And there’s that manager of mine, sleeping down close alongside the reservoir and mill, has never rung the bell yet to muster all hands, when he ought to have had every man out half an hour ago, looking after the drains and water courses. If you want to see a flood, you have got here just in time.’ “The house stood on a hill about three hundred yards from the mill and the other premises, which consisted of manager’s house, engineer’s cottage, coolie and Kafir huts. Hurrying down there as fast as possible, we found all the men quiet enough, although the waters and river were beginning to show what might happen.