of the mid-day sun; while
I scurried off to my room upstairs to shift my wringing clothes and put
on another suit of white flannel, which is the ordinary wear of all
sensible people in tropical countries--just as it is becoming the
fashion over here in summer, especially for fellows who go in for
cricket and other athletic games provocative of perspiration.

I had judged well of the climate and been a true weather prophet; for,
albeit I was pretty sharp in dressing, long ere I could get below again
the rain suddenly ceased falling, and, in another moment or so, the sun
was shining down as potently as it had done before the thunder-storm,
from an absolutely cloudless sky, whose burnished blue arc was only
suggestive of heat and glare as usual.

When I stood under the verandah once more, awaiting Jake with the
horses, I noticed that the marble pavement of the terrace in front had
dried up already, while the earth of the flower-beds scarcely looked
damp. As previously, lots of humming-birds, displaying their rainbow
plumage to the best advantage, were flitting here and there between the
shrubs, in pursuit of the myriads of flies and other insects that had
come out for an airing after the shower, some of the tiny feathered
mites poising themselves before some opening bud or blossom, or else
peering into its interior, with their little wings moving at the rate of
ten thousand bird-power per minute and creating a little halo of
variegated light around them.

The industrious ants, too, had reformed their parasol procession, which
the temporary deluge had seriously disorganised; and, but that several
solemn-looking blackbirds, of a larger species than the yellow-billed
variety familiar to us in England, were now hopping about on the lawn
under the orange-trees, digging up worms, and that a stray drop or two
of crystal glittered on the petals of the roses like diamonds, or
reflected the sunshine from the trumpet bells of the lilies, while there
was a greener tint on the vegetation around, one could hardly have
imagined that it had rained at all!

Still, there was a perceptible coolness in the air now noticeable that
was most refreshing after the suffocating heat, which I had found so
oppressive an hour agone; and, this tempered tone of the atmosphere
brought out more vividly the fragrant scent of the frangipanni and
languid perfume of the jessamine, the whole atmosphere without being
redolent of their mingled odours, harmon