SOUTH AFRICAN THUNDERSTORMS.

North Otago Times, 3 December 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

SOUTH AFRICAN THUNDERSTORMS.

—H SOME THRILLING EXPERIENCES,

South African thunderstorms are amongst the most appalling things in Nature, and woe to those of weak nerves who are. caught in one among the mountains. No words could do them justice, and the most graphic word-painter that" ever wielded pen would fail to bring the reality before those who have never, actually witnessed one. The freaks of the lightning, too, are most extraordinary and altogether inexplicable. Four strange instances have oome under my own observation.I was once lying reading in my waggon, which was outspanned about twenty yards from a Boer's house in the Orange State, a fearful storm being in progress at the time. A blinding flash with a simultaneous terrible crash made ma jump up, when I heard screaming proceed from-the house. I at once hastened to see what was the matter, and found that the lightning had struck the building. Bight people had been sitting in the eating-room and of these five were dead/ and the other three were quite uninjured. The curious part of the matter was that those' killed were not huddled together apart from those who escaped, but all had been mixed up, each of the uninjured having one killed on either side of him.

On another occasion"l was riding over Van Reenen's Pass, in company with two others, when a storm broke upon us. Soon after the sudden lighting up of the country by a flash which -apparently had had no other effect, .one. of my companions all at once gave a yell, and said he had a terrible burning sain on the outside of his left ribs. We at once examined him, and when we opened his waistcoat he was at once relieved. We found that his watch-was actually reduced to a molten mass,'and the hot metal had been burning him !

Another somewhat similar case was in the Transvaal when riding in company with another man near Lydenberg. 'A blinding flash' killed his horse, but neither of us were conscious .of anything but the glare.

The fourth was when sitting in the Coffee-room of a Hotel at Oolenso in Natal, a village-which then consisted of two hotels and a private' house. The flash came down the, chimney, rattled the fire-irons, and knocked-the things off the mantel; but though three of us were sitting within a yard, we felt nothing, and on examination the only damaee we could find was that-the gilt frame of the overmantel was quite blackened.-" The Old Pioneer in.South African Bketches and Stories," reprint-ed-from "South Africa."