I AM CAUGHT IN A SAND STORM.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 November 1927, Page 4

I AM CAUGHT IN A SAND STORM.

(By Walter A. Lamb). The heat was abominable, even for Aden. There was an acrid taste in the air and the sun hung like a painted globe near the indefinite horizon. Wo wore rowing leisurely across the harbour when suddenly Jim pointed in the direction of Laliej. There, towering half-way up the sky, withcurling tendrils thrust forward, was a vast grey cloucl that shrouded the desert view. , “Sand!” shouted' my companion, and in a minute the storm was upon us. It came with a rush of hot wind that whipped the harbour water into waves, while a grey twilight enveloped the town.' Above us a kite was fighting his way landward, heating, his dust-clogged wings with panicky haste, 'The outline of nearby ships wars blurred and finally lost, and then tho sand struck into our faces like an impossibly fierce hailstorm, lodging in our ears, baffling sight, and trickling in irritating streams down our hacks. Worst of all. we found it , hard to breathe through our choked nostrils.

An Arab dhow lumbered out of the cloud, a boatman shouting hoarsely as tlie blunt bow plunged by behind us. Tire crew were lowering the sail before they anchored. AYe reached the shore and fled to tho shelter of a bungalow, shutting the doors and windows in a, vain elfort to keep out tho sand. Then we lit the lamp and waited, thinking the worst uas over.

But always after tho sand come the locusts. One hears the heating of their million wings like the low humming of a dynamo, as tho insects

sweep by. From our bungalow window we watched the locusts pass in black masses ilnit obscured the light of the moon. Then Jimmy rashly opened the windows to let a little air ill, and the locusts took possession of the room. They tumbled into tho lamp, which promptly went out, pinged on the walls, ami smacked into our faces. Cripples crawled up our trouser legs and fumbled into our open shirts. With mutual' upbraldings Jimmy and I closed the windows and relit, the lamp. Then with shovel and broom wo smote those intruders who still disturbed our peace. Excitement was added to the pursuit when we found that locusts had taken refuge in our beds and the appearance of a huge and horribly venomous centipede moved .Timmy—with memories of London’s Zoo—to declare that we- wore lodging in the insect house. After wo had destroyed the lasi <4 our visitors we went to look at our garden—a tiny plot of imported soil wherein wo were trying to coax half a dozen sickly plants to bloom. Not a leaf remained—the locusts had stripped them hare. So Jimmy and I went to bed and dreamed of green fields •and English grasshoppers.