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Here are regions rivalling the Sahara in heat, lack of water, and barrenness, and in many parts as difficult to traverse; regions full of surprises in deceptive mirages, peculiar vegetation, strange animal life, occasional cloud-bursts, purity and exhilarating effects of atmosphere, charm of ever-changing colors reflected from the mountains, wealth of floral display in early spring, and marvellous fertility of soil when touched by the magic wand of water.
Such storms, called cloud-bursts by the country folk, are not rain, rather the spillings of Thor's cup, jarred by the Thunderer. After such a one the water that comes up in the village hydrants miles away is white with forced bubbles from the wind-tormented streams. All that storms do to the face of the earth you may read in the geographies, but not what they do to our contemporaries.
Here you find the hot sink of Death Valley, or high rolling districts where the air has always a tang of frost. Here are the long heavy winds and breathless calms on the tilted mesas where dust devils dance, whirling up into a wide, pale sky. Here you have no rain when all the earth cries for it, or quick downpours called cloud-bursts for violence.
Cloud-bursts come usually in the hottest weather and almost with the suddenness of an explosion. A swiftly moving black cloud tipped with fiery streaks and growing rapidly appears above the crest of the mountains. Then it sinks like a monster balloon turned sidewise until it strikes a ridge or peak; the flood is then let loose and destruction follows.
At all events, the water sinks until it reaches bed rock or clay through which it cannot pass. Then it flows along what may once have been an above-ground channel until fierce winds and cloud-bursts buried it deep. But the half-savage dwellers of the desert know just where to tap these underground reservoirs and streams; even the dumb animals know instinctively where to look for water.
Local gods viewed this selection of a homesite as foolhardy, but Paoa was unaware of the sudden and rapid rise the river made when heavy rains and cloud-bursts loosed their torrents high upon the slopes of Mauna Kea. Hina, goddess of the river, warned the visitor of his danger and told him how the angry waters would sweep everything before them.
Month after month passes without rain. Now and then light clouds float into sight, and occasionally rain can be seen falling from them, but they are so high that the drops all disappear in the dry and thirsty air long before they can reach the ground. Cloud-bursts may take place about the peaks of some of the higher mountains, but they have very little effect upon the life out on the plains.
The sun shone again, hot and sticky, and people were venturing forth from their shelters to wade through beds of mud, or to cross, on planks, the deep, swift rivers formed by the open drains. There were several such cloud-bursts in the course of the afternoon; and each time the refuse of the city was whirled past on the flood, to be left as an edging to the footpaths when the water went down.
And Jack laughed, too, agreeing to everything she said, until she reached that stage in the conversation, never omitted on occasions of this kind, when she declared, arching her head, that she must look like a perfect fright, which Jack at once refuted exclaiming that he had never seen her look so he was going to say "pretty," but checked himself and substituted "well," instead, adding, as he wiped off her ridiculously small boots, despite her protests, with his wet handkerchief, that cloud-bursts were not such bad things, after all, now that he was to have the pleasure of escorting her home.
As the day wore on, the rain increased, and toward evening came regular cloud-bursts. The roads were like bottomless swamps. The farmers who had started from home with their cattle early in the morning, that they might arrive at a seasonable hour, fared badly.
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