Meanwhile the deep roll of thunder continued without a moment's intermission, the prolonged growl of each startling clap varying ever as it receded in a fitful change of intonation; whilst the walling of the blast, accompanied by the sharp rattle of hail, and the impetuous descent of torrents of rain, completed the horrors of a tempest which, now at its height, careered madly over the unbroken plain. The soil had soon swallowed the deluge to overflowing. Muddy rivulets poured through every quarter of the flooded bivouac; and the heavy tarpaulins, which had afforded some temporary shelter, proving of little further avail, the shivering but still watchful party were exposed during many dismal hours that ensued to all the merciless fury of this unappeasable hurricane. Volume One, Chapter XXXVI. VALLEY OF KOKAI--HOSTILITIES OF WULASMA MOHAMMAD. A cool cloudy morning succeeding to this dreary, boisterous and uncomfortable night, the caravan was in motion before sunrise across the uninteresting plain of Azboti, in parts completely swamped, and covered towards its borders with one interminable sheet of the aloe and _lilium_, growing beneath spreading acacias upon a gravelly soil. Then commenced a belt of hummocks, formed by prominences abutting from the high land of Abyssinia--a succession of hill and dale, thickly-wooded with a variety of timber, and still clothed with an undergrowth of the wild aloe, through which wary herds of Baeza threaded their way. The road soon entered the pebbly bed of a mountain stream, running easterly between precipitous basaltic cliffs towards the Hawash; but although such torrents of rain had fallen the preceding night, no water was discovered in the wooded wady of Kokai, until reaching Dathara, nearly thirteen miles from the last encampment, where the party partook of the first crystal brook that had occurred during the entire weary journey from the sea-coast. Three thousand feet above the ocean, with an invigorating, breeze and a cloudy sky, the climate of this principal pass into Southern Abyssinia, was that of a fine summer's day in England, rather than of the middle of July between the tropics. Here for the first time during the pilgrimage, the tent was erected under the shade of a wide-spreading tamarind, which, among many other trees of noble growth, graced the sequestered spot. Above the surrounding foliage the long white roofs of many of the royal magazines were visible, perched high on the blue mountain side. In the forked branches overhead were piled haystack-looking nests of gigantic dimensions, thatched with every attention to neatness and comfort--the small aperture left by the feathered architect turned in every instance to the eastward, and carefully secured from the weather; and perched on every twig, an assemblage of strange birds displayed their gay glittering plumage, or filled the cool air with melodious song.