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.
Pleasant it was also to walk out from Juja in almost any
direction. The compound, and the buildings and trees within it,
soon dwindled in the distances of the great flat plain. Herds of
game were always in sight, grazing, lying down, staring in our
direction. The animals were incredibly numerous. Some days they
were fairly tame, and others exceedingly wild, without any rhyme
or reason. This shyness or the reverse seemed not to be
individual to one herd; but to be practically universal.
