week of patriarchal travel, bringing us back to our remote valley just
as the clouds of the coming monsoon were ranging in denser ranks along
the evening sky like the tents of a beleaguering army. Hardly had we
time to settle down for the wet season, see to the stacking of
fire-logs, and be sure that every tile on the roof was firm in its
appointed place, when the embattled host seemed to break up from its
last camp, and advance upon us along the whole line that the eye
perceived.

One year I was witness of the first onset, which came in the late
afternoon--an immediate shock of massed clouds without throwing forward
of skirmishers or any prelude of the vanguard. Our home looked down upon
a gentle incline of open grassy land to a broad belt of jungle in the
middle distance; here the undergrowth and small trees had been newly
cleared away, opening out a dim far view across an uncumbered
leaf-strewn floor into the backward gloom of the forest. I sat with my
eyes fixed upon the trees, drawing the rain on with the whole strength
of desire to the parched country lying there faint with the exhaustion
of three months of drought. While I watched, the deep line of cloud, at
first distinct from the forest-top along which it came rolling,
insensibly merged with the foliage, until every contour was lost in a
common gloom, only the great bare stems below standing pale against the
gathering darkness. There was an intense stillness everywhere like the
silence of expectation which falls upon an awestruck crowd; the very
insects had ceased their usual song. And now the ear caught a distant
sound, vague and deep, coming up out of the mid darkness, and growing to
a mighty volume as a sudden wind swept out from the sounding foliage
into the open land and searched every cranny of the house as it passed.
Then, as if drawn by the wind, there came into view among the nearest
tree-stems a moving grey line advancing with a long roar until it hid
the whole forest from sight: it was the wave of battle about to break
upon us. It came on like a wall, enormous, irresistible; one instant,
and it had devoured the intervening space; another, and we were lost in
the deluge, and the great rain drops were spilled upon the roof with the
noise of continuous thunder. As the deep sound reverberated through the
roof above me, I went in exulting to a hearth piled with blazing logs,
glad in the prospect of renewing for many weeks old and quiet habitudes
of indo