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174 though at the moment that I heard the plaster fall from the chimney I felt a sudden sharp prick as if the end of a red-hot wire had entered the back of my neck; an instant afterwards my husband ran into the room from the verandah where he had been watching the storm, to see if I was killed, having himself experienced a similar sensation to mine in one of his temples, but with greater force, as the shock had seemed to pass downwards through his whole body to the ground. We ran into the kitchen to see if the servants were hurt, and finding Rosa and Binnahan quite safe though much frightened my husband begged us all to kneel down whilst he returned thanks for our safety. This was on Advent Sunday, and we had but just returned from church, where the rolling of the thunder and plashing of the rain upon the wooden shingles of the roof had rendered much of the service inaudible. The clap following the flash which struck the chimney did not appear to me so tremendous as others that I had heard, and my husband said that he perceived no sound at all. Possibly we were both more or less stunned, for some of our neighbours said that they had never in their lives known such a peal of thunder. A policeman's wife standing at a window had her cheek blistered by the lightning, and the warder of the convict depot received a shock of electricity, such as we had experienced, in his hand whilst in the act of raising it to tilt an accumulation of water off a canvas awning. Bishop Salvado mentions that the natives usually take refuge from thunder-storms beneath twisted trees, "alberi tortuosi," and adds that he had never known a tree of this kind to be struck with lightning, I suppose that the sort