I also told them that the great spirit, whose representative I was, was burning up the land.
Another phenomenon that caused much mystification and terror was an eclipse of the sun.

Never have I seen my blacks in such a state of excitement and terror as when that intense darkness came suddenly over the world at midday.

They came crowding instinctively to me, and I stood silent among the cowering creatures, not thinking it politic for a moment to break the strange and appalling stillness that prevailed on every hand--and which extended even to the animal world.

The trembling blacks were convinced that night had suddenly descended upon them, but they had no explanation whatever to offer.

They seemed quite unfamiliar with the phenomenon, and it was apparently not one of those many things which their forefathers wove superstitious stories around, to hand down to their children.