“This sometimes continues for hours: business is suspended; people desert their claims, and shut themselves up in their dwellings; the streets are abandoned to the dogs, and no one has rest until the wind falls, or a blessed shower turns dust to mud. Whirlwinds of any size or power are always considered unpleasant visitors, and in Du Toit’s Pan they still keep up their reputation. They do not actually tear things upside down, and ruin whole tracts of country, as our Western tornadoes do, but they have an elevating influence, which tents, unfortunately, find it hard to resist, and try their hand at some mischievous trick, which involuntarily makes the sufferer shake his fist at the receding column, as if it was some naughty boy with a smart pair of legs. Now, a broad-brimmed hat leaves its owner’s head with a rush, and when he clears his sight, and spies it majestically revolving two or three hundred feet above him, and evidently having a through ticket for the distant plain, his heart sinks within him, and he mournfully descends his heap to purchase another, or lets his ‘angry passions rise,’ and flails his Caffre for ‘hooraying’ at the exciting spectacle. Again, a digger is industriously sorting on a light table. He has nearly finished his work, when, on looking up, he sees that which makes him shut his eyes, hermetically seal his lips, and bob his head under the table. It is an unlucky position, for the whirlwind upsets the table on his head. It skins his face, and then dives down the adjoining hole, on top of some affrighted black, while the column of wind and sand rushes on, increasing in size and power until it appears on the edge of the camp, to the dismay of all ladies on the streets, all cooks in their canvas or open-air kitchens, and all owners of crazy or dilapidated tents. A minute or two more, it is a thing of the past. The damage is done. The column is far out on the dreary plain, and people resume their occupations.