The pupils contracted
to the brilliancy overhead. Often too, near sunset, the
atmosphere would become suffused with a lurid saffron light that
made everything unreal and ghastly. At such times the game seemed
puzzled by the unusual aspect of things. The zebra especially
would bark and stamp and stand their ground, and even come nearer
out of sheer curiosity. I have thus been within fifty yards of
them, right out in the open. At such times it was as though the
sky, instead of rounding over in the usual shape, had been thrust
up at the western horizon to the same incredible height as the
zenith. In the space thus created were piled great clouds through
which slanted broad bands of yellow light on a diminished world.
It rained with great suddenness on our devoted heads, and with a
curious effect of metamorphoslng the entire universe. One moment
all was clear and smiling, with the trifling exception of distant
rain squalls that amounted to nothing in the general scheme. Then
the horizon turned black, and with incredible swiftness the dark
clouds materialized out of nothing, rolled high to the zenith
like a wave, blotted out every last vestige of brightness. A
heavy oppressive still darkness breathed over the earth. Then
through the silence came a faraway soft drumming sound, barely to
be heard. As we bent our ears to catch this it grew louder and
louder, approaching at breakneck speed like a troop of horses. It
became a roar fairly terrifying in its mercilessly continued
crescendo. At last the deluge of rain burst actually as a relief.
And what a deluge! Facing it we found difficulty in breathing. In
six seconds every stitch we wore was soaked through, and only the
notebook, tobacco, and matches bestowed craftily in the crown of
the cork helmet escaped. The visible world was dark and
contracted. It seemed that nothing but rain could anywhere exist;
as though this storm must fill all space to the horizon and
beyond. Then it swept on and we found ourselves steaming in
bright sunlight. The dry flat prairie (if this was the first
shower for some time) had suddenly become a lake from the surface
of which projected bushes and clumps of grass. Every game trail
had become the water course of a swiftly running brook.
But most pleasant were the evenings at Juja, when, safe indoors,
we sat and listened to the charge of the storm's wild horsemen,
and the thunder of its drumming on the tin roof. The onslaughts
were as fierce and abrupt as those of Cossacks, and swept by as
suddenly. The roar died away in the distance, and we could then
hear the steady musical dripping of waters.
