Tuesday, 9th.—Clear and warm. The new moon having been seen last night put an end to the fast of the Rhamadan; and this day is kept throughout the northern interior by Mohamedan and Kafir. Every one was dressed in his best, paying and receiving visits, giving and receiving presents, parading the streets with horns, guitars, and flutes; groups of men and women seated under the shade at their doors, or under shady trees, drinking roa bum or booza. I also had my share of visitors: the head man of the town came to drink hot water, as they call my tea. The chief of Ingaskie, the second town in Youri, only a day’s journey distant, sent me a present of a sheep, some rice, and a thousand gora nuts, for which he expects double the amount in return. The women were dressed and painted to the height of Nyffé perfection; and the young and modest on this day would come up and salute the men as if old acquaintances, and bid them joy on the day; with the wool on their heads dressed, plaited, and dyed with indigo; their eyebrows painted with indigo, the eyelashes with khol, the lips stained yellow, the teeth red, and their feet and hands stained with henna; their finest and gayest clothes on; all their finest beads on their necks; their arms and legs adorned with bracelets of glass, brass, and silver, their fingers with rings of brass, pewter, silver, and copper; some had Spanish dollars soldered on the back of the rings. They, too, drank of the booza and roa bum as freely as the men, joining in their songs, whether good or bad. In the afternoon, parties of men were seen dancing: free men and slaves all were alike; not a clouded brow was to be seen in Koolfu; but at nine in the evening the scene was changed from joy and gladness to terror and dismay; a tornado had just began, and the hum of voices and the din of people putting their things under cover from the approaching storm had ceased at once. All was silent as death, except the thunder and the wind. The clouded sky appeared as if on fire; each cloud rolling towards us as a sea of flame, and only surpassed in grandeur and brightness by the forked lightning, which constantly seemed to ascend and descend from what was now evidently the town of Bali on fire, only a short distance outside the walls of Koolfu. When this was extinguished a new scene began, if possible worse than the first. The wind had increased to a hurricane; houses were blown down; roofs of houses going along with the wind like chaff, the shady trees in the town bending and breaking; and, in the intervals between the roaring of the thunder, nothing heard but the war-cry of the men and the screams of women and children, as no one knew but that an enemy was at hand, and that we should every instant share in the fate of Bali. I had the fire-arms loaded when I learned this, and stationed Richard and Pascoe at the door of each hut, and took the command of my landlady’s house, securing the outer door, and putting all the fires out.