Everything in Africa is in extremes. The air is at one moment perfectly calm, the next wild with terrific storms. The sky so sweetly serene at noon, before half an hour passes is often darkened by clouds which shroud the land as with a pall. For months, the long droughts parch the earth, the rivers may be forded on foot, the flocks and herds pant for refreshing waters and green herbage. Suddenly, "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand" appears on the horizon, and lo! the elements rage and swell, thunder booms upon the air, darkness covers the land, the arrows of the Almighty dart from the angry heavens, striking death and terror wheresoever they fall. From the far desert an overpowering torrent of sand comes sweeping on, obscuring the air, and making its way into your very house, in such profusion that you may trace characters in its dry-depths on the window-sill. The skies open, the floods descend, the rivers burst their bounds, trees are uprooted from the saturated earth, and through the roof of your dwelling the rain beats heavily, the walls crack, the plaster falls, the beams that support the thatch groan and creak with "melancholy moan," the voices of angry spirits seem to howl and shout around you, the poor birds on frightened wing wheel past your windows, the cattle disturb you with their lowing, the dogs howl, and the unearthly tones of the Kaffir or Fingo herdsman's song are no agreeable addition to the wild scene stirring before you. The tempest, however, subsides as suddenly as it arose, the voices of the storm-spirits die away in the distance over the mountain-tops, the dark pall of clouds is rent by a Mighty Hand, the swollen rivers rush on, bearing evidences of devastation, but subsiding at last into a more measured course; the sun lights up the valleys and the hill-sides, the air is clearer, the sky brighter than ever; and, but for the history of devastation and oftentimes of death, and the knowledge that for weeks the country will be subject to these violent convulsions of nature, the terrors of the tempest would soon be forgotten. Such is the climate of South Africa. Lovely indeed it is for part of the year; for the rest experience is necessary to teach you whether it be agreeable or not. At one time of the day, I have known the thermometer 120 degrees; at sunset, it has been so cold that a fire has been necessary; nay, I have known it 92 degrees in a room with the air kept out at noon, and at six I have wanted a shawl, or cloak, during my walk. In the morning, you are scorched and blistered by the hot wind, while the vegetation is withering under your feet, and at night you must wrap yourself well up, and put your feet in shoes "impervious to the dew," and yet experience shows that it is perfectly healthy. [Note 1.]