ABSTRACT
THE morning of the day we left Sierra Leone was typical of the fickle changes of the climate. It was fiercely hot, and not a breath of air stirred the glass}; surface of the swell. The sky was blue overhead, but charged with sickly yellow above the sweep of land and sea. Freetown lay invisible, hidden in fleecy mist which rose half the height of the Lion Mountain, and all on board were in a state of prickly irritation. Tired of the glare of the scorching deck, where a swarm of woolly-haired Krooboy labourers were hurrying the last of the cargo into a lighter alongside, I occupied myself with some papers in my cabin beneath the poop, and when a few minutes later a sudden dimness caused me to look up, I saw the sun had gone. Then there was a stunning roll of thunder, and the vessel seemed to tremble through every plate with the reverberation, while ere the echoes had died away a wild uproar broke out. Half-naked deck hands were leaping
and struggling about the hatch covers, vainly attempting to hold tarpaulins and even stout deal planks down by main force, and some of them were actually lifted into the air and hurled against the deck. One huge sheet whirled aloft and disappeared into mid-air, and then the screaming of the wind drowned the roar of orders. The 4000ton steamer swayed down and down, until the snowy swell lapped her scuppers, while the sea grew feather-white, and the spray flew across her in sheets. Then she span round like a top, the strident roar of cable grinding across her stem mingling in the din, and the engines began to throb. Standing half-choked and blinded beneath the break of the poop, I saw a little schooner lying at anchor close alongside list over until the water lapped high about her sloping deck, while the terrified crew clung helplessly to the weather shrouds. Her canvas was stowed tight along the booms, and the bare surface of her masts and bulwarks was all the wind had to act upon, and yet that seemed enough to blow her bodily over. Then the heavens were opened, and there was nothing to be seen but a sheet, literally a sheet, of falling water, which hid even our bridge-deck from view, or heard but the roar of the rain. This lasted, it may have been five minutes, or even less, and then the sun broke through the cloud-banks. The scream of wind was gone, and there was only the tumbling of the swell
to show that a tornado had passed that way. The whole affair only occupied some fifteen minutes in all, and now the sky was clear, and the sun shone down hot and bright. As it happened, no damage was done; but such is not always the case, and that the mercury gave no warning of the tornado's approach I can vouch, for I had just glanced at the barometer. Such storms are fairly common at times, especially towards the end of the year, and the danger lies in the fact that there is oftell no warning at all in either sky or sea.
