316 



SOLWAY MOSS SOLYMAN. 



dreadful inundations \vhirh dc.-tro\vd so large a dis- 

 trict. The more remarkable circumstances relating 

 to this calamitous event, were these: On the thir- 

 teenth of November, 1771, i" a dark, tempestuous 

 night,* the inhabitants of the plains were alarmed 

 with a dreadful crash, which they could no way 

 account for: many of them were then in the fields, 

 watching their cattle, lest the Esk, which was 

 then rising violently in the storm, should carry 

 them off. In the mean time, the enormous mass 

 of fluid substance, which had burst from the moss, 

 moved slowly on, spreading itself more and more 

 as it got possession of the plain. Some of the 

 inhabitants, through the terror of the night, could 

 plainly discover it advancing like a moving hill. 

 This was, in fact, the case ; for the gush of mud 

 carried before it, through the first two or three 

 hundred yards of its course, a part of the breast- 

 work, which, though low, was yet several feet in 

 perpendicular height; but it soon deposited this 

 solid mass, and became a heavy fluid. One house 

 after another it spread round, filled, and crushed 

 into ruins, just giving time to the terrified inhabi- 

 tants to escape. Scarcely any thing was saved 

 except their lives; nothing of their furniture, fevv 

 of their cattle. Some people were even surprised 

 in their beds, and had the additional distress of 

 flying naked from the ruins. The morning light 

 explained the cause of this amazing scene of terror, 

 and showed the calamity in its full extent; and 

 yet, among all the conjectures of that dreadful 

 night, the mischief that really happened had never 

 been supposed. Lands which, in the evening, 

 would have let for twenty shillings an acre, in the 

 morning were not worth sixpence. On this well- 

 cultivated plain, twenty-eight families had their 

 dwellings and little farms, every one of which, ex- 

 cept, perhaps, a few who lived near the skirts of it, 

 had the world totally to begin again. Who could 

 have imagined that a breastwork which had stood 

 for ages should at length give way ? or that these 

 subterraneous floods, which had been bedded in 

 darkness since the memory of man, should ever 

 have burst from their black abode ? This dreadful 

 inundation, though the first shock of it was most 

 tremendous, continued still spreading for many 

 weeks, till it covered the whole plain, an area of 

 500 acres, and, like molten lead poured into a 

 mould, filled all the hollows of it, lying, in some 

 parts, thirty or forty feet deep, reducing the whole 

 to one level surface." (Gilpin's Observations on the 

 Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland.} In order 

 to clear the arable and pasture land of this accumu- 

 lation of moss, Air Wilson, from Yorkshire, adopted 

 a very ingenious plan. He formed, in the higher 

 grounds, two large reservoirs, which he filled with 

 water, the whole force of which he directed against 

 a large knoll in front of Netherby house, and after- 

 wards against the accumulated masses, which he 

 succeeded in washing away into the channel of the 

 Esk. Doctor Graham, of Netherby, had sent for a 

 person to survey the ground, and estimate the 

 expense of removing the moss in the ordinary way. 

 'Ihe estimate was 1300; but while the matter 

 was under consideration, Wilson suggested that it 

 might be done cheaper; and by the method which 

 we have mentioned, he effected it for less than 20. 

 Another account of the eruption of this moss, by 

 Mr J. Walker, of Moffat, will be found in the 

 Philosophical Transactions for 1772, vol. Ixii, p. 



* Three days' rain, of unusual violence, preceded the vrup- 

 t.on. 



1:>;5. According to Mr Walker, the mossy ridge 

 was reduced no less than twenty. five feet; but 

 what is not easily explained, he makes the eruption 

 take place on the sixteenth of December, 1772, 

 whereas Gilpin places it on the thirteenth of 

 November, 1771. Mr Walker mentions the re- 

 markable case of a cow, the only one, out. of eight 

 in the same byre, that was saved. It had stood 

 sixty hours up to the neck in mud and water; and 

 when it was taken out, it did not refuse to eat, but 

 it would not taste water, nor even look at it, without 

 manifest signs of horror. It was soon, however, 

 reconciled to it, and was then likely to recover. 



SOLYMAN II. (called the Lawgiver by his 

 own subjects, and the Magnificent by the Chris- 

 tians) was the only son of Selim I., whom he suc- 

 ceeded in 1520. Three days previous to the death 

 of his father, and at the same time when Charles 

 V. was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, he was pro- 

 claimed sultan. He had not been educated in the 

 usual manner of the Ottoman princes, but, on the 

 contrary, had been initiated in all the secrets of 

 state policy. His love of justice appeared at the 

 very commencement of his reign, when he returned 

 the property which his father had taken from indi- 

 viduals. He restored the authority of the couits 

 of justice, which had been entirely destroyed, ami 

 selected governors and other officers from persons 

 who possessed property and were honest. " I 

 intend," said he, "that they should resemble 

 the rivers which fertilize the countries through 

 which they flow, not the streams which break 

 down all they meet." Gazeli Beg, the governor 

 of Syria, had at first declared against Solyman, 

 and involved a part of Egypt in his revolt; 

 but he was overcome by the generals of Solyman, 

 who also destroyed the Mamelukes in Egypt, and 

 concluded an armistice with Persia. Having thus 

 secured himself from disturbance on the side of 

 Syria and Egypt, he besieged and took Belgrade in 



1521. In 1522, he resolved to besiege the island 

 of Rhodes, which had been in the possession of the 

 knights of St John for 212 years. He wrote a 

 haughty letter to the knights, in which he called 

 on them to surrender, unless they wished to be put 

 to the sword. The siege of Rhodes cost him many 

 men; but, at length, the town, being reduced to 

 extremity, was forced to surrender, December 26, 



1522. The conqueror now turned his arms against 

 Hungary, where he gained the battle of Mohatz, in 

 1526. He afterwards took Buda (1529), advanced 

 to Vienna, and, in twenty days, made as many 

 assaults upon this city, but was finally forced to 

 raise the siege, with the loss of 80,000 men. In 

 1534, he marched towards the East, took possession 

 of Tauria, but was defeated by Shah-Thamas ; and, 

 in 1565, his army met with the same fate before 

 Malta as formerly before Vienna. In 1566, he 

 took possession of the island of Scio, and ended his 

 life, August 30 of the same year, at the siege of 

 Sigeth, in Hungary, in the seventy-sixth year of 

 his age, and four days before the taking of the for- 

 tress by the Turks. His victorious arms made 

 him equally dreaded in Europe and in Asia. His 

 empire extended from Algiers to the Euphrates, 

 and from the extremity of the Black sea to the 

 farthest limits of Greece and Epirus. His abilities 

 were equally great for the conduct of affairs in 

 peace and in war. As a general, he possessed a 

 wonderful activity: his word was held sacred: he 

 was a firm friend to justice, although his love for 

 the sultana Roxalana, and her persuasions, pre- 



