RIVER LIFE. 215 



" The next incident occurred at midnight, when the bells were 

 rung to announce the giving way of the ice. It was a fearful 

 sound and scene. The streets were thronged with men, women, 

 and children, who rushed abroad to witness the approach of the 

 icy avalanche. At length it came rushing on with a power that 

 a thousand locomotives in a body could not vie with ; but it was 

 vailed from the eye by the darkness of a hazy night, and the ear 

 only could trace its progress by the sounds of crashing buildings, 

 lumber, and whatever it encountered in its path-way, except the 

 glimpses that could be caught of it by the light of hundreds of 

 torches and lanterns that threw their glare upon the misty at- 

 mosphere. The jam passed on, and a portion of it pressed through 

 the weakest portion of the great bridge, and thus, joining the ice 

 below the bridge, pressed it down to the narrows at High Head. 

 Meanwhile the destruction was in progress on the Kenduskeag, 

 which poured down its tributary ice, sweeping mills, bridges, 

 shops, and other buildings, with masses of logs and lumber, to 

 add to the common wreck. 



" At that moment, the anxiety and suspense were fearful 

 whether the jam would force its way through the narrows, or 

 there stop and pour back a flood of waters upon the city ; for it 

 was from the rise of the water consequent upon such a jam that the 

 great destruction was to be apprehended. But the suspense wafl 

 soon over. A cry was heard from the dense mass ot* citizens who 

 crowded the streets on the flat, 'The river is flowing back !' and 

 SO sudden was the revulsion, that it required the utmost speed to 



escape the rising waters. It seemed but a moment before the 



entire Hat was deluged ; and many men did not escape from 

 their stores before the Water was up to their waists. Had you 

 witnessed the scene, occurring as it did in the midst of a dark 

 and hazy night, and had you heard ihe mailing of the waters 

 and the crash of the ruins, and seen the multitudes retreating in 

 a mass from the returning flood, illumined only by the glare oi' 



