All night the water poured through the house floor onto the people sheltering below: but (perhaps owing to the madeira) it did them no harm. Shortly after the second bout of blowing, however, the rain stopped; and when dawn came Mr. Thornton crept out to assess the damage.
The country was quite unrecognisable, as if it had been swept by a spate. You could hardly tell, geographically speaking, where you were. It is vegetation which gives the character to a tropic landscape, not the shape of the ground: and all the vegetation, for miles, was now pulp. The ground itself had been ploughed up by instantaneous rivers, biting deep into the red earth. The only living thing in sight was a cow: and she had lost both her horns.