Before reaching the latter place, they encountered a terrific thunderstorm, in the midst of which they separated, and Byron's detachment lost its way for nine hours, during which he composed the verses to Florence, quoted above.

" Several severe thunderstorms broke over the city while he was there, and one was said to be the worst which had been known within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.

A violent thunderstorm during the night was followed by a rainy and misty morning; the weather clearing up, we walked down to the Chapman River, which was running in a sandy channel with small shallow pools.

One evening there burst over London a fearful thunderstorm, and hearing a knock at my door, I opened it, to find a beautiful girl named Dorothy, the daughter of the housekeeper, standing there.

And then about eleven, just after I had gone to bed, came a tremendous drenching thunderstorm and a great whirlwind.

The Acheron, which they crossed in this route, is now called the Kalamas, a considerable stream, as large as the Avon at Bath but towards the evening they had some cause to think the Acheron had not lost all its original horror; for a dreadful thunderstorm came on, accompanied with deluges of rain, which more than once nearly carried away their luggage and horses.

The day was hot and nearly calm, but at noon we were benefited by a few passing clouds, and at 6.0 p.m. a dry thunderstorm cooled the air from 100 degrees to 93 degrees, but the temperature rose at 8.0 to 96 degrees.

The fiercest thunderstorm that we had yet experienced raged throughout that night, and had we not been protected by the bluff on one side, and the timber on the other, our tents would have been carried away by the gale.

There was to be rain that afternoonlocal thunderstorms, followed by clearing and cooler.

At night, as in a furious thunderstorm, the darkness was pierced with the unintermittent flashes of the guns, while sickly green rockets shed a ghastly light over the fighting lines.

If infrequent thunderstorms left a haze in the cañons, it soon vanished in the light air.

Thus the Sheriff and a score of men ran away from Robin Hood and Little John; so that when Will Stutely and a dozen or more of stout yeomen burst from out the covert, they saw nought of their master's enemies, for the Sheriff and his men were scurrying away in the distance, hidden within a cloud of dust like a little thunderstorm.

Unable to foresee the outcome of the great struggle, having lost faith in those everlasting truths, religious and political, which it was madly setting at naught, what could it appear to him but an awakening from the dead, a return to young and genial health, a purifying thunderstorm.

Next day the brigade remained at Hal in the morning, but about mid-day came an orderly from the Duke, and we pushed on once more until we came to a little village called Braine something, and there we stopped; and time too, for a sudden thunderstorm broke over us, and a plump of rain that turned all the roads and the fields into bog and mire.

May is usually calm; but in May and June there are frequent thunderstorms, introducing the south-west monsoon, which though it extends through the months of July, August, and September, is not so constant as the north-east.

Sometimes his words are heavy with the doubtful horror of an approaching thunderstorm:

At noon we had an awful thunderstorm, during which my soul was calm and peaceful.

The monsoon, now due, comes from the south-west, and therefore a gale from the north-east was unexpected, though I must say that, as we were being assailed by constant thunderstorms, we had no right, in my opinion, to consider ourselves secure on any side against the assaults of the wind.

Kate's face was softened and full of rich expression; her pink ribbons threw a delicate tinge of bloom upon the rounded cheek and pensive eyelid; the air was pure balm, and a cool breath from the receding showers of the distant thunderstorm just freshened the odors of wood and field.