Few of
them can write or read, but they are shrewd observers of men and
things, and often exceedingly agreeable and instructive companions to
those who understand them, and can make them enter into unreserved
conversation. Our tent stood out the storm pretty well, but we were
obliged to defer our march till the next day. On the afternoon of the
27th we went on twelve miles, over a plain of deep alluvion, through
which two rivers have cut their way to the Chambal; and, as usual,
the ravines along their banks are deep, long, and dreary.
About half-way we were overtaken by one of the heaviest showers of
rain I ever saw; it threatened us from neither side, but began to
descend from an apparently small bed of clouds directly over our
heads, which seemed to spread out on every side as the rain fell, and
fill the whole vault of heaven with one dark and dense mass. The wind
changed frequently; and in less than half an hour the whole surface
of the country over which we were travelling was under water. This
dense mass of clouds passed off in about two hours to the east; but
twice, when the sun opened and beamed divinely upon us in a cloudless
sky to the west, the wind changed suddenly round, and rushed back
angrily from the east, to fill up the space which had been quickly
rarefied by the genial heat of its rays, till we were again enveloped
in darkness, and began to despair of reaching any human habitation
before night.
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