Nevertheless, it is necessary to have lived in “the land of thirst” in order to appreciate the delights of this first shower of rain, the joy experienced in exposing oneself to the big drops of this first burst of storm.
O the first tornado!... In a leaden, impassive sky like a gloomy vault, a strange weather sign appears, rising above the horizon.
It rises and rises, assuming unusual and terrifying shapes. At first one might imagine it to be the eruption of a gigantic volcano, the explosion of an entire world. It forms itself into great arches across the sky, ever rising higher, one above the other, with sharply outlined contours, in opaque, heavy masses. One might imagine them vaults of stone about to precipitate themselves upon the world, and the whole is lighted on the under side with metallic gleams, livid, greenish or copper-coloured. And it continues to rise without a check.
The artists who have painted the deluge, the cataclysms of the primeval world, have never conceived scenes so fantastic, skies so terrifying.
And still there is not a breath of air. Nature lies prostrate, without a tremor.
Suddenly a terrific onslaught of wind, like the crack of a heavy whip, beats to the ground trees, herbage, birds. It whirls the maddened vultures round and round, upsetting everything in its track.
It is the tornado, bursting its chains. All things tremble and reel; nature is convulsed under the terrible might of the hurricane passing on its way.
For perhaps twenty minutes all the sluices of heaven are opened upon the earth. Rain, as of the great flood, refreshes the thirsty soil of Africa, and the wind blows furiously, strewing the earth with leaves, branches, and débris.
Then suddenly all is peace. It is over. The final gusts of wind put to flight the last copper-coloured clouds, and sweep away the tattered shreds of the cataclysm. The hurricane is over, and the sky is once more clear, impassive, blue.
The first tornado took the spahis by surprise, while they were on the march. There was a laughing, noisy stampede. The village of Touroukambé lay in the way, and they made for it, helter-skelter.