We sat for half an hour listening to the thunder muttering fainter and fainter as it rolled away in the distance. The voice of A--summoned us from the tent. To our surprise we found the sky clear and no trace of the storm in the heavens, but an inky cloud disappearing far away on the horizon. About fifty yards ahead of the wagon was a large hole in the road that had been torn up by the fury of that thunderbolt which had so terrified us. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. These African thunderstorms occur at different seasons in different localities, and everywhere they are terrible. They do more harm by their violence than the rain which accompanies them does good. During their continuance (fortunately they never last long) the water comes down in veritable sheets, rushing down slopes and mountain-sides in a resistless flood, swelling rivers in a few moments from ditches into torrents. A storm in the mountains at times fills the streams leading out from them to such an extent that with scarcely any warning the waters come tumbling down in cataracts, the rivers rising to a height of forty feet in as many minutes. A friend of ours with his partner had been trading for years in the Zambesi country, and was bringing down a large quantity of furs, feathers, and ivory to the colonial market. On reaching the banks of a little river, remarking that it was running somewhat swifter than usual, they entered it with their wagon, without any thought of danger. Suddenly, as they reached the middle, the waters came rolling down with a roar like Niagara, sweeping away the results of two years' labour in a moment; they barely escaped with their lives. We asked our friend what he did at the time. "Why," said he, "we tried to express the situation in words, but we could not do it justice, so we just sat down on two ant-hills, laughing at one another and our luck." Several similar cases occurred during our stay in the upland country. A coach with four passengers was swept away in a moment while fording a swelling river at night, the driver only escaping. The boys were soon at work coaxing up a fire, with the help of some dry wood we had in the wagon, and coffee was made. The meal was rather dismal, for night had fallen, and the boys were looking anxiously at the condition of the road, and the hopeless state of the wagon wheels, which had sunk into the sloppy turf almost up to the hubs. There was no use trying to go on that night, so putting out our swinging lantern, we lay down to sleep.