Bruce now proceeded over a plain partly covered with groves of acacia-trees, in full flower, towards the mountains, upon the ascent to which he met with considerable numbers of the wild mountain shepherds, descending with their families and flocks to the seashore, drawn thither by the fresh grass which springs up in October and November all along the coast. Their path, from the time they had reached the acclivity, lay over a broken, stony road, along the bed of a mountain torrent; but having reached a small green hill at some distance from the stream, they pitched their tent; and, it being near evening, prepared to pass the night there. The weather, which had hitherto been fine, now seemed to threaten rain. The loftier mountains, and a great portion of the lower ones, were quite hidden by thick clouds; the lightning was very frequent, broad, and deeply tinged with blue; and long peals of thunder were heard at a distance. “The river,” says Bruce, “scarcely ran at our passing it. All on a sudden, however, we heard a noise on the mountains above, louder than the loudest thunder. Our guides upon this flew to the baggage, and removed it to the top of the green hill; which was no sooner done than we saw the river coming down in a stream about the height of a man, and breadth of the whole bed it used to occupy. The water was thickly tinged with red earth, and ran in the form of a deep river, and swelled a little above its banks, but did not reach our station on the hill.” During this day’s march he first saw the dung of elephants, full of thick pieces of undigested branches; and observed in the tracks through which they had passed several trees thrown down or broken in the middle, while the ground was strewed with half-eaten branches. The wild tribes who inhabited these mountains were a small, active, copper-coloured race, who lived in caves, or cages covered with an ox’s hide, and large enough to hold two persons. Though possessed of numerous herds of cattle, they abstained, like the Brahmins, from animal food, and subsisted entirely upon milk.