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Seven Years in South Africa.

extinguished it, there was nothing to be ascertained about Boly. The wind had now risen to a hurricane, and brought upon us a most furious storm. Although our position in the hollow had the advantage of sheltering us in some degree from the violence of the tempest, it had the disadvantage of receiving all the torrents that rushed down from the flats above, and we were rendered wretchedly uncomfortable by the in-pouring flood. However, it was not so much the discomfort we endured as the anxiety about our missing companion that engrossed our minds; we felt so perplexed and baffled that we could talk and think of nothing else, and yet we were powerless to aid him. The storm was increasing, flash following on flash, and thunder-clap rolling after thunder-clap, and the-rain beat so heavily upon the waggon-tilt that it was only by shouting at the top of our voices that we could make each other hear. The temperature, which all day had been very high, became suddenly checked, and a cold chill made us shiver again in our damp clothes.

The storm lasted for hours, and by the time that the wind abated, and the rain ceased, we were all very fatigued. It was indispensable that we should have a little repose, but we hardly allowed ourselves a couple of hours’ rest before we were ready, by daybreak, to make what search we could for our missing friend. I sent one of the servants in the likeliest direction, and he had not gone many hundred yards, when he fell in with Boly making